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The "breakfast-Table" Series; The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, the Professor at the Breakfast-Table, the Poet at the Breakfast-Table
The breakfastTable Series The Autocrat of the BreakfastTable the Professor at the BreakfastTable the Poet at the BreakfastTable Author:Oliver Wendell Holmes General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1882 Original Publisher: G. Routledge and sons Subjects: Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary Literary Collections / American / General Literary Collections / Essays Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / American / General Notes: This is a black and w... more »hite OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: In all forms of active exercise there are three powers simultaneously in action -- the will, the muscles, and the intellect. Each of these predominates in different kinds of exercises. In walking, the will and muscles are so accustomed to work to- gather and perform their task with so little expenditure of force, that the intellect is left comparatively free. The mental pleasure in walking, as such, is in the sense of power over all our moving machinery. But in riding I have the additional pleasure of governing another will, and my muscles extend to the tips of the animal's ears and to his four hoofs, instead of stopping at my hands and feet. Now in this extension of my volition and my physical frame into another animal, my tyrannical instincts and my desire for heroic strength are at once gratified. When the horse ceases to have a will of his own and his muscles require no special attention on your part, then you may live on horseback, as Wesley did, and write sermons or take naps as you like. But, you will observe that, in riding on horseback, you always have a feeling that, after all, it is not you that do the work, but the animal, and this prevents the satisfaction from being complete. Now let us look at the conditions of rowing. I won't suppose you to be disgracing yourself in one of those miserable tubs, tugging in which is to rowing the true boat what riding a co...« less