remedy much worse than the disease. The only stimulant, at once safe
and effectual, which I needed was fresh air. The moment I found myself
among the hills a miraculous change was wrought in me. I had not
breathed that quick and vital air for an hour before a glow ran through
my veins more delightful, and much more enduring, than the glow of
wine. A single night in some small cottage chamber--where the very bed
had a cool scent of flowers and lawns, where the open window admitted
air fresh from pine forest and mountain streams, where the silence was
so deep that one's pulse seemed to tick aloud like a watch--and I awoke
a man renewed. Six o'clock, or even five, was not too soon for all my
little household to be astir. We were all alike eager for the open
air; for the walk, bare-footed, through the dewy grass to the mountain
pool; for the shock and thrill of that green water into which we
plunged delighted; and in those prolonged and pure ablations I think
our spirits shared. The bells of laughter rang the livelong day. The
cramped mind began to move again, and long abdicated powers of fancy
and of humour were restored. Equanimity of body brought evenness of
temper; it was incredible to recollect how irritable we had been with
one another in those ghastly days of London fog, when the very grating
of a chair along the floor made the nerves jump. Even the mind took
new edge, for though I did not read much upon a holiday, yet I found
that what I did read left a clearness of impression to which I had long
been unaccustomed. And what was the root and cause of all this
miracle? Fresh air, wholesome food, rude health--nothing more! To
feel that it is bliss to be alive, health alone is needed. And by
health I mean not the absence of physical ailment or disease, but a
high condition of vitality. This the country gave me; this the town
denied me. The only question was then, at what rate did I value the
boon?