your case as that of a stranger; and I put it to you, whether common sense
would not order you to take more regular exercise and work your brain less.
(N.B. Take a cold bath and walk before breakfast.) I am certain in the
long run you would not lose time. Till you have a thoroughly bad stomach,
you will not know the really great evil of it, morally, physically, and
every way. Do reflect and act resolutely. Remember your troubled heart-
action formerly plainly told how your constitution was tried. But I will
say no more--excepting that a man is mad to risk health, on which
everything, including his children's inherited health, depends. Do not
hate me for this lecture. Really I am not surprised at your having some
headache after Thursday evening, for it must have been no small exertion
making an abstract of all that was said after dinner. Your being so
engaged was a bore, for there were several things that I should have liked
to have talked over with you. It was certainly a first-rate dinner, and I
enjoyed it extremely, far more than I expected. Very far from disagreeing
with me, my London visits have just lately taken to suit my stomach
admirably; I begin to think that dissipation, high-living, with lots of
claret, is what I want, and what I had during the last visit. We are going
to act on this same principle, and in a very profligate manner have just
taken a pair of season-tickets to see the Queen open the Crystal Palace.
(37/1. Queen Victoria opened the Crystal Palace at Sydenham on June 10th,
1854.) How I wish there was any chance of your being there! The last
grand thing we were at together answered, I am sure, very well, and that
was the Duke's funeral.

Have you seen Forbes' introductory lecture (37/2. Edward Forbes was
appointed to a Professorship at Edinburgh in May, 1854.) in the "Scotsman"
(lent me by Horner)? it is really ADMIRABLY done, though without anything,
perhaps, very original, which could hardly be expected: it has given me
even a higher opinion than I before had, of the variety and polish of his