These
two years of bush life, with other journeys on the Australian
Continent, and in Tasmania, and the voyages out and back, gave a world
of new vigor that has been serving me ever since. During the last
summer in Switzerland, Mrs. Howitt and myself, at the respective ages
of sixty-eight and seventy-six, climbed mountains of from three to
five thousand feet above the level of the sea, and descended the same
day with more ease than many a young person of the modern school could
do.
As to our daily mode of life, little need be said. We keep early
hours, prefer to dine at noon, are always employed in "books, or work,
or healthful play;" have no particular rules about eating and
drinking, except the general ones of having simple and good food, and
drinking little wine. We have always been temperance people, but never
pledged, being averse to thraldom of any kind, taking, both in food
and drink, what seemed to do us good. At home, we drink, for the most
part, water, with a glass of wine occasionally. On the Continent, we
take the light wines of the country where we happen to be, with water,
because they suit us; if they did not, we should eschew them. In fact,
our great rule is to use what proves salutary, without regard to any
theories, conceits, or speculations of hygienic economy; and, in our
case, this following of common sense has answered extremely well.
At the same time it is true that many eminent men, and especially
eminent lawyers, who in their early days worked immensely hard,
studied through many long nights, and caroused, some of them, deeply
through others, yet attained to a good old age, as Lords Eldon, Scott,
Brougham, Campbell, Lyndhurst, and others.
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