Instead of involving deprivation and asceticism, that mid-summer month
in the Forest of Fontainebleau, occupied in making an _economy_ and
an _endurance_-test, was a carnival of tempting plenty in the way of
good food enjoyed to the full satisfaction of a healthy appetite. The
endurance-test recounted in the letter following is evidence of the
effect of such sumptuousness when approached by different methods of
gratification. The powerful young artist who volunteers the story lived
in the ordinary way and the aged reformer and research-dietetician,
whom the young athlete paced, treated his food as recommended in this
book.
EDWARD W. REDFIELD'S EVIDENCE
(In response to an invitation to recount his remembrance of the test
after a lapse of four years.)
"CENTRE BRIDGE, PENN.
"MY DEAR MR. FLETCHER:
"My remembrance of the trip is as follows: On August 10th, 1899, I
was spending the summer at Brolles, on the border of the Forest of
Fontainebleau in France, when you came to visit me and enjoy the forest
at the same time that you were conducting some chewing exercises and
planning an endurance-test on bicycle on the fiftieth anniversary of
your birthday. You were quietly living then according to the regimen
with which your name is now connected and I was pursuing the ordinary
habits of life which are common to artists abroad. The test was not
only to determine the endurance of yourself, but to furnish a contrast
with ordinary conditions of nutrition. We were eating at the same
table, with the same food available to each, and were taking about the
same amount of physical exercise. We turned in at night at the same
time, as people are apt to do in the country, and it was my custom to
rise at or before daylight. This habit of early rising came natural
to me from my farmer education and habitual practice, and yet I never
could surprise you early enough to catch you asleep. My first thought
on getting out was to stop under your window and chant the refrain,
'Mr. Fletcher, are you up?' in imitation of the catch-line of a popular
song of the year. Frequently the click of your typewriter warned me
that you were already at work, but you were always awake and ready for
'anything doing.'
"I was, at the time, thirty years of age and thought myself in good
condition and strong even for a farmer's boy; had previously done
considerable long-distance road-riding, including League of American
Wheelmen runs, etc., in competition with the 'cracker jacks'; and, to
be frank with you, thought the agreement to pace you on that particular
day a 'snap,' and I expected to lose you in the woods before long.
"The day was perfect, rather warm, as I remember it, and with little
or no breeze. Our start was made at 3.55 A. M. (arose at 3.30). Course
selected: To Fontainebleau and thence across country to Orleans, about
one hundred kilometers distant from Brolles. I considered Orleans the
limit and fully expected to have you return by railway from there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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