She had interesting dogs and she took them with her.

She walked, too, in beautiful country.

But she was carrying in her mind all the time extreme resistance to other circumstances of her life.

She did not know how to drop the resistance or face the circumstances, and the mental strain in which she held herself day and night, waking or sleeping, prevented the outdoor exercise from really refreshing her.
When she learned to face the circumstances then the exercise could do its good work.
On the other hand, there are many forms of nervous resistance and many disagreeable moods which good, vigorous exercise will blow away entirely, leaving our minds so clear that we wonder at ourselves, and wonder that we could ever have had those morbid thoughts.
The mind acts and the body reacts, the body acts and the mind reacts, but of course at the root of it all is the real desire for what is normal, or--alas!--the lack of that desire.
If physical culture does not make us love the open air, if it does not make us love to take a walk or climb a mountain, if it does not help us to take the walk or climb the mountain with more freedom, if it does not make us move along outdoors so easily that we forget our bodies altogether, and only enjoy what we see about us and feel how good it is to be alive--why, then physical culture is only an ornament without any use.
There is an interesting point in mountain-climbing which I should like to speak of, by the way, and which makes it much pleasanter and better exercise.

If, after first starting--and, of course, you should start very slowly and heavily, like an elephant--you get out of breath, let yourself stay out of breath.