MENTAL EXHILARATION. 
289 
\rt that H. would not be my amanuensis on 
such occasions, refusing to commit my brilliant 
ideas to paper, and only giving a pitying smile 
when I confided to him that I was meditating a 
poem. I used to think him very commonplace 
when he ordered boiling water, and asked me if 
the tea-caddy was handy. 
Sundry twinges in the region of the neck and 
shoulders might give warning of what must fol- 
low, but the flights of the imagination do not 
suffer one to think of things corporal. You sit 
mounting the ladder of fame with soaring spirit, 
deliberating which of your many projects you 
will give the first place to, when a sensation as 
if cold water were trickling down the spine 
arrests you. There is no mistaking this symp- 
tom. You may feel rebellious, you may weep 
for very chagrin ; but get into bed, and heap 
every garment you possess upon you. The lips 
are blue, the fingers are benumbed already ; the 
rending ague, the burning fever, the soaking 
sweat, the prostrating weakness, will follow as 
surely as the day the dawn. 
There is something pathetic to myself in my 
hasty arrangements when an attack seizes me. 
I get my stove lit to make the hot weak tea 
which helps one through the ague. I lay every- 
T 
RAFALES library 
SINGAPORE. 8.S. 
