For one or two years, I
accomplished more than I have here claimed, viz., from six to seven
thousand miles in the twelve months. Let me add to this slight abstract
of my own experience, in a point where it is really difficult to offer
any useful advice, (the tastes and habits of men varying so much in
this chapter of exercise,) that one caution seems applicable to the
case of all persons suffering from nervous irritability, viz., that a
secluded space should be measured off accurately, in some private
grounds not liable to the interruption or notice of chance intruders;
for these annoyances are unendurable to the restless invalid; to be
questioned upon trivial things is death to him; and the perpetual
anticipation of such annoyances is little less distressing. Some plan
must also be adopted for registering the number of rounds performed. I
once walked for eighteen months in a circuit so confined that forty
revolutions were needed to complete a mile. These I counted, at one
time, by a rosary of beads; every tenth round being marked by drawing a
blue bead, the other nine by drawing white beads. But this plan, I
found in practice, more troublesome and inaccurate than that of using
ten detached counters, stones, or anything else that was large enough
and solid.
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