Strength and How to Obtain It

It is curious to me to look back a year or two and to reflect upon the change in public opinion upon this subject which has taken place in so short a time. When I first began to preach the “gospel of health and strength” the general tendency was to make fun of me. Some people called me a fool; others, a charlatan. Very few indeed took the trouble to see whether there was anything in my theories, and to test for themselves their truth or falsity. That was, so to speak, only yesterday; what an alteration, and an alteration for the better, is to be observed to-day. I shall not be accused of undue egotism if I say that my ideas have “caught on.” All over the country, among the young, “physical culture” is now the rage, and that it is no mere passing fancy is proved by the fact that those who are no longer in their first youth are its equally devoted, though possibly less feverish, disciples.

“And what is physical culture?” is naturally the question which arises to the lips of those to whom the subject is still unfamiliar. Let me begin by saying what it is not. To begin with, to suppose, as many people do suppose, that athletics and physical culture are the same thing is quite a mistaken notion. Then is physical culture opposed to athletics? Certainly not. Cricket and football and rowing and swimming, and, indeed, all forms of manly sport and exercise, are admirable things in their way, but they are not physical culture.

It is not necessary, as some may think, to be born strong in order to become strong. Unlike the poet, who, we are told, has to be born a poet, the strong man can make himself. As a child, I was myself exceedingly delicate. More than once, indeed, my life was despaired of. Until I was in my tenth year I scarcely knew what strength was. Then it happened that I saw it in bronze and stone. My father took me with him to Italy, and in the art galleries of Rome and Florence I was struck with admiration for the finely developed forms of the sculptured figures of the athletes of old. I remember asking my father if people were as well developed in these modern times. He pointed out that they were not, and explained that these were the figures of men who lived when might was right, when men’s own arms were their weapons, and often their lives depended upon their physical strength. Moreover, they knew nothing of the modern luxuries of civilization, and, besides their training and exercise, their muscles, in the ordinary course of daily life, were always being brought prominently into play.

The memory of these muscular figures were ever present, and when we returned home to Konigsberg I wanted to become strong like them. But though I used to try my strength and attend the gymnasium, nothing came of my desire for some years.

The preliminary arrangements having been completed, and the note for £100 handed to Captain Molesworth, the manager of the Aquarium, I walked up to the stage. Seeing me in evening dress, the audience were unable to realise that I stood the slightest chance of defeating the strong man and his pupil. They even shouted to Samson not to heed me, but to get on with his performance. It seemed evident to them that I was unequal to the task that had been undertaken, and Samson himself burst out laughing when he saw me. The coolness and indifference of this first reception in London were not, perhaps, unnatural, for in evening dress there was nothing, as everyone said at the time, specially remarkable about my appearance. But when I took off my coat, and the people could see the muscular development, the tone of indifference changed immediately to surprise and curiosity. Samson and Cyclops themselves shared the general astonishment, though they did not allow their surprise to be shown for more than a moment, Samson being heard to remark, “We will beat him, anyhow.”

The eventful evening which was to decide the issue between us fell on the 2nd of November, 1889. Never, it was said, had the Royal Aquarium been so densely crowded. The people began to arrive as early as two o’clock in the afternoon. When I reached the building, in company with Captain Molesworth, Mr. Attila, and Mr. Fleming, twenty minutes before the hour announced for the challenge to be taken up, it was literally impossible to get through the crowd.

Here, at the very outset, was a difficulty of a new and an unexpected character. What was to be done? To try to get through the enormous throng in twenty minutes was obviously hopeless. Willing as the crowd might be to let us pass it was beyond their power to make way for us. We determined, therefore, to go to the stage door, and here a further difficulty presented itself. We could not gain admission; no one would open the heavy door. The man behind had received the strictest orders to prevent anyone from entering. In vain did Captain Molesworth implore him to let us through, explaining who we were. The man was obdurate. He said that he was very sorry, but he failed to recognise Captain Molesworth’s voice, and he could not disobey explicit instructions.

All the time the precious minutes were flying, and the hour when the challenge was to be met had actually arrived. It was, indeed, an anxious and a trying moment. We heard afterwards that when the hour of the challenge came and Samson saw that I was not there, he strutted up and down the stage, exclaiming: “Ah! see, he does not come!

At the end of my first engagement in London and the provinces, I went to Germany for a holiday. Driving out one day at Aachen, I met a veritable giant. He was a quarryman, and he was engaged in loading stones. So huge and extraordinary was his appearance that my horse positively shied at him.

Imagine, if you can, this tremendous fellow: his head as huge and grotesque as that of any pantomime mask, with a nose the size of an ordinary fist. As for his own fist, it would have made more than three of mine, and when a five-shilling piece was placed beneath the ball of his finger, believe me, it was impossible to see it. So large were his boots that not only could I get both my feet into one, but I could turn entirely round inside. And yet, strangely enough, despite his immense limbs and body, he was not an extraordinarily tall man. A little more than six feet; six feet two-and-a-half inches, in fact, was his height. His chest measurement was about eighty inches and his weight 400lbs. He was not a fat man in proportion to his size. Quite the contrary. He was bony and muscular.

The thought occurred to me that I should take the bear’s place, and measure my strength against the king of the forests. Of course there is always between the unarmed man and the beast this disadvantage, that the beast has natural weapons in his teeth and claws, whilst a man has nothing to help him in the fight. This lion, moreover, was a particularly furious animal. Only a week before he made a meal of his keeper. I have met many lions in various places, and this beast was certainly the largest and finest of them all. I was fully prepared to meet him as he was, provided I could have an equivalent for his claws in a short dagger or some similar weapon; but the law in America, as in England, is rightly very stern against cruelty to animals, and the dagger, of course, could not be allowed. If I desired to meet the beast the only way was to fight him as I would box a man, completely unarmed. As there is no law to prevent cruelty to men, there was no objection to this method, though Colonel Bone, as well as my own friends, insisted that if there was to be a fight it must be a struggle between brute strength and human strength. In short, mittens would have to be placed on the lion’s feet to prevent him from tearing me to pieces with his claws, and a muzzle would have to be placed over his head.