end that I
was evidently suffering seriously from threatening nervous symptoms, and
that he would like to attend me. He did so, and gave me daily a
teaspoonful of bromide of potassium. This gave me sleep and appetite;
but, after some weeks or months, the result was a settled, mild
melancholy and tendency to rest. In fact, it was nearly eighteen months
before I recovered so that I could write or work, and _live_ as of old.

I had inherited from both parents, and suffered all my life fearfully at
intervals, from brachycephalic or dorsal neuralgia. Dr. Laborde made
short work of this by giving me appallingly strong doses of _tincture of
aconite and sulphate of quinine_. Chemists have often been amazed at the
prescription. But in due time the trouble quite disappeared, and I now,
_laus Deo_! very rarely ever have a touch of it. As many persons suffer
terribly from this disorder, which is an _aching_ in the back of the head
and neck accompanied by "sick headache," I give the ingredients of the
cure; the proper quantity must be determined by the physician. {373}

We dined once with Mr. Washburne, who during dinner showed his extreme
goodness of heart in a very characteristic manner. Some foolish American
had during the _emeute_--in which I was to have been a leader, had I so
willed--got himself into trouble, not by fighting, but through mere
prying Yankee "curiosity" and mingling with the crowd. Such people
really deserve to be shot more than any others, for they get in the way
and spoil good fighting. He was deservedly arrested, and sent for his
Minister, who, learning it, at once arose, drove to the _prefecture_, and
delivered his inquisitive compatriot. On another occasion we were the
guests of J. Meredith Read, then our Minister to Athens, where we met
Prevost Paradol. But at this time there suddenly came over me a distaste
for operas, theatres, dinners, society--in short, of crowds, gaslight,
and gaiety in any form, from which I have never since quite recovered. I
had for years been fearfully overdoing it all in America, and now I was
in the reaction, and longed for rest. I was in that state when one could
truly say that life would be tolerable but for its amusements. It is
usual for most people to insist in such cases that what the sufferer
needs is "excitement" and "distraction of the mind," change of scene or
gaiety, when in reality the patient should be most carefully trained to
repose, which is not al