The energy and desire for activity with immunity from fatigue, which was the characteristic equipment of twenty years ago returned, but not, of course, the trained muscular strength or suppleness of athletic days.
The food invited by Appetite at this stage, the nutriment in which counter-balanced the waste in each twenty-four hours, consisted of about thirty ordinary mouthfuls of potato, bread, meat, or anything selected by Appetite, masticated and manipulated to the end.
One meal a day was taken for convenience, and because it seemed, under the then existing circumstances, hot summer weather, to be the time set by Nature for eating. "I rise in the morning," as a champion pugilist once put it, "when my bed gets tired of me," which at the time was usually before, or at, daylight, and began writing or other work. By one o'clock I usually was "worked out," but had already disposed of practically a day's work. Then, in the middle of the day, when all the animals rest and some of them chew the cud, I took my meal. I had not, meantime, experienced a moment of craving for _anything_ since the meal of the day before, but I sat down with an epicurean appetite.
The article of food on the _menu_ that first attracted me, I fixed my desire upon. At the time it was usually a meat or a fish, and there accompanied it only a cup of coffee, nine-tenths milk, bread and butter, and potato. Sometimes the meat selected was an _entrée_, and was garnished with rice and other fruits or vegetables.
About thirty mouthfuls of these, disposed of in something less than twenty-five hundred acts of mastication or other movement of the mouth, and taking about thirty minutes to thirty-five minutes, satisfied the appetite so perfectly that all the ices and desserts on a sumptuous bill of fare had no attraction.
In the meantime, water was drunk, in small portions slowly, and ice water at that, without restriction, to satisfy thirst, _but not_ when any food was in process. In the mouth the water was almost instantly brought to body-temperature and its coolness was very agreeable to all the senses. I now rarely take any water except in very hot weather when perspiration is active and then only enough to quench thirst, excess giving discomfort and necessitating more perspiration. Water injures digestion by being taken with meals only because it is used to wash down food not yet prepared for the stomach. It is the unfit food that is carried down by it and not the water that does the harm.