III. Next, after the most vigorous attention, and a scientific
attention to the digestive system, in power of operation, stands
_exercise_. Here, however, most people have their own separate
habits, with respect to the time of exercise, the duration, and the
particular mode, on which a stranger cannot venture to intrude with his
advice. Some will not endure the steady patience required for walking
exercise; many benefit most by riding on horseback; and in days when
roads were more rugged, and the springs of carriages less improved, I
have known people who found most advantage in the vibrations
communicated to the frame by a heavy rumbling carriage. For myself,
under the ravages of opium, I have found walking the most beneficial
exercise; besides that, it requires no previous notice or preparation
of any kind; and this is a capital advantage in a state of drooping
energies, or of impatient and unresting agitation. I may mention, as
possibly an accident of my individual temperament, but possibly, also,
no accident at all, that the relief obtained by walking was always most
sensibly brought home to my consciousness, when some part of it (at
least a mile and a half) has been performed before breakfast. In this
there soon ceased to be any difficulty; for, whilst under the full
oppression of opium, it was impossible for me to rise at any hour that
could, by the most indulgent courtesy, be described as within the pale
of morning, no sooner had there been established any considerable
relief from this oppression, than the tendency was in the opposite
direction; the difficulty became continually greater of sleeping even
to a reasonable hour.
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