with this little I had
preserved myself so many years; and that, to me, the habit of it
was become a second nature; and that it was more agreeable to
reason, that, as I advanced in years and lost my strength, I
should rather lessen than increase the quantity of my food:
Farther, that it was but natural to think, that the powers of
the stomach grew weaker from day to day; on which account I
could see no reason to make such an addition. To corroborate
my arguments, I alleged that those two natural and very true
proverbs; one, that he, who has a mind to eat a great deal, must
eat but little; which is said for no other reason than this, that
eating little makes a man live very long, and living very long he
must eat a great deal. The other proverb was, that what we leave
after making a hearty meal, does us more good than what we have
eat. But neither these proverbs, nor any other arguments I could
think of, were able to prevent their teazing me more than ever.
Wherefore, not to appear obstinate, or affect to know more than
the physicians themselves; but, above all, to please my family,
who very earnestly desired it, from a persuasion that such an
addition to my usual allowance would preserve my strength, I
consented to increase the quantity of food, but with two ounces
only. So that, as before, what with bread, meat, the yolk of
an egg, and soup, I eat as much, as weighed in all twelve ounces,
neither more nor less, I now increased it to fourteen; and as
before I drank but fourteen ounces of wine, I now increased it to
sixteen. This increase and irregularity, had, in eight days time,
such an effect upon me, that, from being chearful and brisk, I
began to be peevish and melancholy, so that nothing could please
me; and was constantly so strangely disposed, that I neither knew
what to say to others, nor what to do with myself. On the twelfth
day, I was attacked with a most violent pain in my side, which held
me twenty-two hours, and was succeeded by a terrible fever, which
continued thirty-five days and as many nights, without giving me
a moment's respite; though, to say the truth, it began to abate
gradually on the fifteenth. But notwithstanding such abatement,
I could not, during the whole time, sleep half a quarter of an
hour together, insomuch that every one looked upon me as a dead
man. But, God be praised, I recovered merely by my former regular
course of life, though then in my seventy-eighth year, and in the
c