[The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer Lytton]@TWC D-Link bookThe Coming Race CHAPTER XV 7/15
Whether by temperament or philosophy, they rank repose among the chief blessings of life.
Indeed, when you take away from a human being the incentives to action which are found in cupidity or ambition, it seems to me no wonder that he rests quiet. In their ordinary movements they prefer the use of their feet to that of their wings.
But for their sports or (to indulge in a bold misuse of terms) their public 'promenades,' they employ the latter, also for the aerial dances I have described, as well as for visiting their country places, which are mostly placed on lofty heights; and, when still young, they prefer their wings for travel into the other regions of the Ana, to vehicular conveyances. Those who accustom themselves to flight can fly, if less rapidly than some birds, yet from twenty-five to thirty miles an hour, and keep up that rate for five or six hours at a stretch.
But the Ana generally, on reaching middle age, are not fond of rapid movements requiring violent exercise.
Perhaps for this reason, as they hold a doctrine which our own physicians will doubtless approve--viz., that regular transpiration through the pores of the skin is essential to health, they habitually use the sweating-baths to which we give the name Turkish or Roman, succeeded by douches of perfumed waters.
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