Now, my mind seeming to treat the matter very pleasantly as well as profitably, I followed her counsel, and instead of calling out for relief according to the fable, I kept along on my journey, with my bundle of sticks,--_i.e._ my arms and legs. Between ourselves, it would have been “extremely inconvenient,” as I once heard the opium-eater declare, to pay the debt of nature at that particular juncture; nor do I quite know, to be candid, when it would altogether suit me to settle it, so, like other parties in narrow circumstances, I laughed, and gossiped, and played the agreeable with all my might; and as such pleasant behaviour sometimes obtains a respite from a human creditor, who knows but that it may prove successful with the Universal Mortgagee? At all events, here I am, humming “Jack’s Alive!” and my own dear skilful native physician gives me hopes of a longer lease than appeared from the foreign reading of the covenants. He declares indeed, that, anatomically, my heart is lower hung than usual--but what of that? _The more need to keep it up!_ So huzza! my boys! Comas and Momus for ever! No Heraclitus! Nine times nine for Democritus! And here goes my last bottle of Elixir at the heads of the Blue Devils--be they Prussian blue or indigo, powder-blue or ultramarine!
Gentle reader, how do you like this Laughing Philosophy? The joyous cheers you have just heard, come from a crazy vessel that has clawed, by miracle, off a lee-shore, and I, the skipper, am sitting down to my grog, and recounting to you the tale of the past danger, with the manœuvres that were used to escape the perilous Point. Or rather, consider me as the Director of a Life Assurance, pointing out to you a most beneficial policy, whereby you may eke out your natural term. And, firstly, take precious care of your precious health,--but how, as the housewives say, to make it keep? Why, then, don’t care and smoke-dry it--or pickle it in everlasting acids--like the Germans. Don’t bury it in a potato-pit, like the Irish. Don’t preserve it in spirits, like the Barbadians. Don’t salt it down, like the Newfoundlanders. Don’t pack it in ice, like Captain Back. Don’t parboil it in Hot Baths. Don’t bottle it, like gooseberries. Don’t pot it--and don’t hang it. A rope is a bad Cordon Sanitaire. Above all, don’t despond about it. Let not anxiety “have thee on the hyp.” Consider your health as your best friend, and think as well of it, in spite of all its foibles, as you can. For instance, never dream, though you may have a “clever hack,” of galloping consumption, or indulge in the Meltonian belief, that you are going the pace. Never fancy every time you cough, that you are going to coughy-pot. Hold up, as the shooter says, over the heaviest ground. Despondency in a nice case is the over-weight that may make you kick the beam and the bucket both at once. In short, as with other cases, never meet trouble half-way, but let him have the whole walk for his pains; though it should be a Scotch mile and a bittock. I have even known him to give up his visit in sight of the house. Besides, the best fence against care is a ha! ha!--wherefore take care to have one all round you wherever you can. Let your “lungs crow like Chanticleer,” and as like a GAME cock as possible. It expands the chest, enlarges the heart, quickens the circulation, and “like a trumpet makes the spirit dance.”