The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3): Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the AlmanacHone, William
History
The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3): Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac
Hone, William
Days; Great Britain -- Social life and customs
Read any of the accounts that are given of them, even by writers the
most opposed to their way of life, and you will find these very writers
refuting themselves and their proposed ameliorations by confessing that
no human beings can be better formed, or healthier, or happier than the
gipsies, so long as they are kept out of the way of towns and their
sophistications. A suicide is not known among them. They are as merry as
the larks with which they rise; have the use of their limbs to a degree
unknown among us, except by our new friends the gymnasts; and are as
sharp in their faculties as the perfection of their frames can render
them. A glass of brandy puts them into a state of unbearable transport.
It is a superfluous bliss; wine added to wine: and the old learn to do
themselves mischief with it, and level their condition with stockbrokers
and politicians. Yet these are the people whom some wiseacres are for
turning into bigots and manufacturers. They had much better take them
for what they are, and for what Providence seems to have intended
them--a memorandum to keep alive among us the belief in nature, and a
proof to what a physical state of perfection the human being can be
brought, solely by inhaling her glorious breath, and being exempt from
our laborious mistakes. If the intelligent and the gipsy life could ever
be brought more together, by any rational compromise, (and we do not
despair of it, when we see that calculators begin to philosophize,) men
might attain the greatest perfection of which they are capable.
Meanwhile the gipsies have the advantage of it, if faces are any index
of health and comfort. A gipsy with an eye fit for a genius, it is not
difficult to meet with; but where shall we find a genius, or even a
fundholder, with the cheek and health of a gipsy?
There is a fact well known to physicians, which settles at once the
importance of fresh air to beauty, as well as health. It is, that in
proportion as people stay at home, and do not set their lungs playing as
they ought, the blood becomes dark, and lags in its current; whereas the
habit of inhaling the air out of doors reddens it like a ruby, and makes
it clear and brisk. Now the darker the blood, the more melancholy the
sensations, and the worse the complexion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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