ften loses strength in the
unnatural contest and sinks exhausted, perhaps never to rise with
actual vigour again. Baffled in his attempts to remedy my ailments, Dr.
R---- at last resorted to the usual plan adopted by all physicians when
their medicines have no power. He recommended change of air and scene,
and urged my leaving London, then dark with the fogs of a dreary
winter, for the gaiety and sunshine and roses of the Riviera. The idea
was not unpleasant to me, and I determined to take the advice
proffered. Hearing of my intention, some American friends of mine,
Colonel Everard and his charming young wife, decided to accompany me,
sharing with me the expenses of the journey and hotel accommodation. We
left London all together on a damp foggy evening, when the cold was so
intense that it seemed to bite the flesh like the sharp teeth of an
animal, and after two days' rapid journey, during which I felt my
spirits gradually rising, and my gloomy forebodings vanishing slowly
one by one, we arrived at Cannes, and put up at the Hotel de L----. It
was a lovely place, and most beautifully situated; the garden was a
perfect wilderness of roses in full bloom, and an avenue of
orange-trees beginning to flower cast a delicate fragrance on the warm
delicious air.

Mrs. Everard was delighted.

"If you do not recover your health here," she said half laughingly to
me on the second morning after our arrival, "I am afraid your case is
hopeless. What sunshine! What a balmy wind! It is enough to make a
cripple cast away his crutches and forget he was ever lame. Don't you
think so?"

I smiled in answer, but inwardly I sighed. Beautiful as the scenery,
the air, and the general surroundings were, I could not disguise from
myself that the temporary exhilaration of my feelings, caused by the
novelty and excitement of my journey to Cannes, was slowly but surely
passing away. The terrible apathy, against which I had fought for so
many months, was again creeping over me with its cruel and resistless
force. I did my best to struggle against it; I walked, I rode, I
laughed and chatted with Mrs. Everard and her husband, and forced
myself into sociability with some of the visitors at the hotel, who
were disposed to show us friendly attention. I summoned all my stock of
will-power to beat back the insidious physical and mental misery that
threatened to sap the very spring of my life; and in some of these
efforts I partially succeeded. But it was