I knew a sick and very nervous woman who had failed in many hands to
regain health of mind. I had been able to restore to her all she needed
in the way of blood and tissue, but she remained, as before, almost
helplessly nervous. Wealth made all resources easy, and yet I had been
unable to help her. At last I said to her, "If you were a man I think I
could cure you." I then told her how in that case I would ask a man to
live. "I will do anything you desire," she said, and this was what she
did. With an intelligent companion, she secured two well-known, trusty
guides, and pitched her camp by the lonely waters of a Western lake in
May, as soon as the weather allowed of the venture. With two good
wall-tents for sleeping-and sitting-rooms, with a log hut for her men a
hundred yards away and connected by a wire telephone, she began to make
her experiment.

A little stove warmed her sitting-room at need, and once a fortnight a
man went to the nearest town and brought her books. Letters she avoided,
and her family agreed to notify her at once of any real occasion for her
presence. Even newspapers were shut out, and thus she began her new
life. Her men shot birds and deer, and the lake gave her black bass, and
with these and well-chosen canned vegetables and other stores she did
well enough as to food. The changing seasons brought her strange
varieties of flowers, and she and her friend took industriously to
botany, and puzzled out their problems unaided save by books. Very soon
rowing, fishing, and, at last, shooting were added to her resources.
Before August came she could walk for miles with a light gun, and could
stand for hours in wait for a deer. Then she learned to swim, and found
also refined pleasure in what I call word-sketching, as to which I shall
by and by speak. Photography was a further gain, taken up at my
suggestion. In a word, she led a man's life until the snow fell in the
fall and she came back to report, a thoroughly well woman.