The great destroyers of life are not labor and exertion, either
physical or intellectual, but care, misery, crime, and dissipation. My
wife derived from her parentage similar advantages, and all the habits
of our lives, both before and since our marriage, have been of a
similar character. My boyhood and youth were, for the most part, spent
in the country; and all country objects, sports, and labors,
horse-racing and hunting excepted, have had a never-failing charm for
me. As a boy, I ranged the country far and wide in curious quest and
study of all the wild creatures of the woods and fields, in great
delight in birds and their nests, climbing the loftiest trees, rocks
and buildings in pursuit of them. In fact, the life described in the
"Boy's Country Book," was my own life. No hours were too early for me,
and in the bright, sunny fields in the early mornings, amid dews and
odour of flowers, I breathed that pure air which gave a life-long tone
to my lungs that I still reap the benefit of. All those daily habits
of climbing, running, and working developed my frame to perfection,
and gave a vigor to nerve and muscle that have stood well the wear and
tear of existence. My brain was not dwarfed by excessive study in
early boyhood, as is too much the case with children of to-day. Nature
says, as plainly as she can speak, that the infancy of all creatures
is sacred to play, to physical action, and the joyousness of mind that
give life to every organ of the system.
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