1842-43. HOMCEPAATHIC REGIMEN. 303 



present write no better ; when I reach the sofa, you may expect 

 something more rational Your loving 



" We are all well" " GEORGE." 



To Miss ABERNETHY. 



" February 6, 1843. 



" I am sure you will be very glad to see a few scribbled lines 

 from myself to say I am getting better. Although still with 

 aches enough to make a man who had never been ill think him- 

 self in a very miserable way, I have come out of such a gulf of 

 pain and weariness of flesh and spirit, that I feel very thankful 

 for being so well as I am, and am back to many of my old tricks, 

 though still but in a rickety condition. I owe you thanks for 

 that refined calf-foot jelly which you so kindly sent me. But 

 in regard to it, I wish particularly to know if you have turned a 

 homoeopathist in your medical practice, and were induced to send 

 me that instead of any other delicacy from a belief that a dose 

 cooked from the foot of one calf would be likely to prove bene- 

 ficial to the ailing foot of another. If so, I admire your philo- 

 sophy, and have improved on it, for my diet consists chiefly of 

 the flesh of chickens, to which I have betaken myself, from a 

 remembrance that these worthy animals spend a great part of 

 their lifetime standing on one leg ; a feat which, now that I am 

 struck off the list of bipeds, I cannot learn to perform too well, 

 and which the infusion of their substance into mine may con- 

 duce to make more easy and, as it were, natural to me 



In sober seriousness, I have every reason to be thankful and 

 contented with my progress, and I try to lie as patiently as I 

 can, while the weary days and still more weary nights slowly 

 glide away. 



" I can write no more at present, but be sure that though they 

 should chop all the rest of me into little bits, so long as they 

 leave the heart of me untouched, I shall be your unchangeable 



" GEORGE WILSON." 



" The Sofa, March 11, 1843. 



" MY DEAR JAMES, You have long been an enigma to me in 



