Samuel Smiles：Self-Help, Excerpt 206

The success of even professional men depends in no slight degree on their physical health; and a public writer has gone so far as to say that “the greatness of our great men is quite as much a bodily affair as a mental one.” {319} A healthy breathing apparatus is as indispensable to the successful lawyer or politician as a well-cultured intellect. The thorough aëration of the blood by free exposure to a large breathing surface in the lungs, is necessary to maintain that full vital power on which the vigorous working of the brain in so large a measure depends. The lawyer has to climb the heights of his profession through close and heated courts, and the political leader has to bear the fatigue and excitement of long and anxious debates in a crowded House. Hence the lawyer in full practice and the parliamentary leader in full work are called upon to display powers of physical endurance and activity even more extraordinary than those of the intellect,—such powers as have been exhibited in so remarkable a degree by Brougham, Lyndhurst, and Campbell; by Peel, Graham, and Palmerston—all full-chested men.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/935
Locator：Excerpt 206 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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