impatience with any thing like contradiction or opposition, by an
absolute aversion to reading, and by a very humiliating sense of the
fact that the _vis vitae_ had somehow become pretty thoroughly
eliminated from both mind and body. Still, when night came, as with
long-drawn steps it did come, there was the consciousness that
something had been gained, and that this daily gain, small as it was,
was worth all it had cost. The tenth day of the experiment had reduced
my allowance to sixteen grains. The effect of this rapid diminution
of quantity was now made apparent by additional symptoms. The first
tears extorted by pain since childhood were forced out as by some
glandular weakness. Restlessness, both of body and mind, had become
extreme, and was accompanied with a hideous and almost maniacal
irritability, often so plainly without cause as sometimes to provoke a
smile from those who were about me.
For a few days a partial alleviation from too minute attention to the
pains of the experiment were found in vigorous horseback exercise. The
friend to whose serviceableness in pecuniary matters I have already
alluded, offered me the use of a saddle-horse. The larger of the two
animals which I found in his Stable was much too heroic in appearance
for me in my state of exhaustion to venture upon. Besides this, his
Roman nose and severe gravity of aspect somehow reminded me, whenever
I entered his stall, of the late Judge ----, to whose Lectures on the
Constitution I had listened in my youth, and in my then condition of
moral humiliation I felt the impropriety of putting the saddle on an
animal connected with such respectable associations. No such scruples
interfered with the use of the other animal, which was kept chiefly, I
believe, for servile purposes. He was small and mean-looking--his
foretop and mane in a hopeless tangle, with hay-seed on his eyelids,
and damp straws scattered promiscuously around his body.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account