"'No, and don't intend to. To observe that, I must relinquish all thought of mounting the professional and political ladder, even half way to the mark I _must_ and _will_ reach. I have naturally a strong constitution, and I calculate it will last, with the rapid mounting I intend, till I reach the top round, and that is all that I care for. But I shall know, all the while, that I am going up like a rocket, whose height and brilliancy are only attained by the certain and rapid wasting of the substance that composes it. But the case is different with you, Carvil. You have a constitution yet to make, or your rocket will go out, before you can get high enough, in these days of jostling and severe competition, to warrant the attempt of mounting at all.' "Such was one of Wright's intuitive grasps at the truth, hid under the false notions of the times, or the artificial theories of books, which he was wasting his life to master, and often only mastering to despise. And I, being now earnestly in search of the best means of health, eagerly caught at his notion, which placed the matter in a light in which I had never before seriously viewed it, and, indeed, struck me with a force that soon brought me to a dead stand in all my calculations for the future. 'What is it,' thought I, running into a sort of mental dialogue with myself, and calling in what little true science I had learned, to aid me in fully testing the soundness of the notion, before I finally gave in to it; 'what is it that hardens the muscles, and compacts the human system?'--'Thorough exercise, and constant use.'--'Can these be had in the study-room?' 'No.'--'And what is the invigorating and fattening principle of the air we breathe?'--'Oxygen.'--'Can this be had in the close or artificially-heated room?'--'No, except in stinted and uncertain proportions. It can be breathed in the open fields, but much more abundantly in the woods.'--'Well, what do I need?'--'Only hardening and invigorating.'--'But shall I go to the relaxing clime of the South for this?'--'No; the northern wilderness were a hundred times better.'--'It is settled, then.'--'Landlord,' I cried aloud, as I saw that personage at that moment passing by my partly open door, 'when does the first stage, going north, start?' "'In twenty minutes, and from my door.' "'Order on my luggage, here; make out your bill; and I will be on hand.'