No one ever heard me complain
of the want of a dinner, or of the quality of what was set before me;
but I now know that a day or two's fasting will do me no sort of harm,
[Footnote: Twice in my life I have tried the experiment of a
_strictly_ vegetarian diet (_without milk, batter, eggs, fish
or flesh_)-once when I was about twelve years old, and again, for
forty-eight days, beginning On the 25th June, 1878. I had been for
some months taking regular exercise (a rare thing with me), walking on
four miles every morning from six to seven, so that I was in rude
health. I was just beginning a stiff piece of literary work on
Juvenal, which involved the daily examination of several hundred
passages of authors, chiefly Greek and Latin; and I wished to try how
far vegetarian diet would enable me to resist the depressing influence
of fasting. I mapped out my forty-eight days into four divisions of
twelve each, intending (if all went well) to fast every other day for
the first twelve; every third for the second; every fourth for the
third; and every sixth for the last twelve. I thought it prudent to
consult a doctor (a thing which I have scarcely ever had occasion to
do), who bid me go to the prison to be weighed every two or three
days and to show myself to him twice a week. I did not quite carry
out my scheme, but I did complete more than half--and the severer
half--with no ill effects, fasting June 25, 27, 29, July 2, 5, 7.
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