It will give me great pleasure if I can in any way contribute to your
so very interesting researches, and I shall be glad to know whether
you have published anything on the subject you have questioned me on.
I find vigorous exercise the first and most important stimulant to
hard work. I get up in summer at six, in winter at seven, take an hour
and a half's hard ride, afterwards a warm bath, a cold douche, and
then breakfast. I work from ten to seven generally; but twice or
thrice a week I have an additional exercise--an hour's fencing before
dinner, which I take at 8 p.m. I take light claret or hock to my
dinner, but never touch any wine or spirits at any other times, and
eat meat only once in twenty-four hours. I find a small cup of coffee
after luncheon very exhilarating. I smoke when hard at work--chiefly
cigarettes. After a long sitting (as I do not smoke while working
_from nature_), a cigarette is a soother for which I get a
perfect craving. In the evening, or when I am in the country doing
nothing, I scarcely smoke at all, and do not feel the want of it
there; nor do I then take at evening dinner more than one or two
glasses of wine, and I have observed that the same quantity which
would make me feel giddy in the country when in full health and
vigour, would not have the slightest effect on me when taken after a
hard day's work. I also observed that I can work longer without
fatigue when I have had my ride, than when for any reason I have to
give it up. I have carried this mode of life on for nearly twenty
years, and am well and feel young, though forty-eight. I never see any
one from ten to three o'clock; after that I still work, but must often
suffer interruption. I found that temperament and constitution are
rarely, if ever, a legitimate excuse for departure from abstinence and
sober habits. I have the conviction that in order to have the eye and