Note 22 — Chapter VII · AGAIN IN THE PHILIPPINES

While he was making these studies he found relaxation in athletics. He screwed together some of his regularly apportioned time to get into the fields and play. He learned to box and to play cricket; he had long been an expert fencer.22 At cricket he was so good that it seems a pity baseball came so late into his country; it is a game that would have exactly suited his tastes and inclinings. In the combination of alert mentality and swift physical action that baseball requires must be something peculiarly attractive to the Filipino, for do but observe the astonishing records he has made at it, exciting the admiration of the most experienced judges. Rizal had never forgotten the training in physical exercise he had received from his uncle; he still loved to fence, to ride, to run, to take long, swift walks. His faith was all in the mental health that is fortified by physical well-being; when all his mental enginery had been working full tilt he found ease in the open air, in quick motion and the trees and flowers. His body was as supple as a wrestler’s, and in support of his theories of reciprocal mental and physical soundness it is to be remarked that in all his life he seems never to have been seriously ill.