In
town, where I dine later, I make but two meals a day. Fruit makes a
considerable part of my diet, and I eat it at almost any part of the
day without inconvenience. My drink is water, yet I sometimes, though
rarely, take a glass of wine. I am a natural temperance man, finding
myself rather confused than exhilarated by wine. I never meddle with
tobacco, except to quarrel with its use.
That I may rise early, I, of course, go to bed early: in town, as
early as 10; in the country, somewhat earlier. For many years I have
avoided in the evening every kind of literary occupation which tasks
the faculties, such as composition, even to the writing of letters,
for the reason that it excites the nervous system and prevents sound
sleep.
My brother told me, not long since, that he had seen in a Chicago
newspaper, and several other Western journals, a paragraph in which it
is said that I am in the habit of taking quinine as a stimulant; that
I have depended upon the excitement it produces in writing my verses,
and that, in consequence of using it in that way, I had become as deaf
as a post. As to my deafness, you know that to be false, and the rest
of the story is equally so. I abominate all drugs and narcotics, and
have always carefully avoided every thing which spurs nature to
exertions which it would not otherwise make. Even with my food I do
not take the usual condiments, such as pepper, and the like.
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