"And work," added the doctor, quietly, "means death."

I started. He was not trying to frighten me: he was plainly in earnest.

"It is merely a question of time," he went on. "You have a fine
constitution; you are a young man; but you cannot deliberately overwork
your brain, and derange your nervous system, much longer. Go away at
once. If you are a good sailor, take a sea-voyage. The ocean air is the
best of all air to build you up again. No: I don't want to write a
prescription. I decline to physic you. I have no more to say."

With these words my medical friend left the room. I was obstinate: I
went into court the same day.

The senior counsel in the case on which I was engaged applied to me for
some information which it was my duty to give him. To my horror and
amazement, I was perfectly unable to collect my ideas; facts and dates
all mingled together confusedly in my mind. I was led out of court
thoroughly terrified about myself. The next day my briefs went back to
the attorneys; and I followed my doctor's advice by taking my passage
for America in the first steamer that sailed for New York.

I had chosen the voyage to America in preference to any other trip by
sea, with a special object in view. A relative of my mother's had
emigrated to the United States many years since, and had thriven there
as a farmer. He had given me a general invitation to visit him if I
ever crossed the Atlantic. The long period of inaction, under the name
of _rest_, to which the doctor's decision had condemned me, could
hardly be more pleasantly occupied, as I thought, than by paying a