precepts; and while in the prime of youth inaugurated a wig in a
fashion that defied the flight of time, not curly and hyacinthine, but
straight-haired and unassuming. He looked five-and-thirty from the
day he put on that wig at the age of twenty-five. He looked
five-and-thirty now at the age of fifty-one.

"I mean," said he, "to remain thirty-five all my life. No better age
to stick at. People may choose to say I am more, but I shall not own
it. No one is bound to criminate himself."

Mr. Mivers had some other aphorisms on this important subject. One
was, "Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it
to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist
on principle at the onset. It should never be allowed to get in the
thin end of the wedge. But take care of your constitution, and,
having ascertained the best habits for it, keep to them like
clockwork." Mr. Mivers would not have missed his constitutional walk
in the Park before breakfast if, by going in a cab to St. Giles's, he
could have saved the city of London from conflagration.

Another aphorism of his was, "If you want to keep young, live in a
metropolis; never stay above a few weeks at a time in the country.
Take two men of similar constitution at the age of twenty-five; let
one live in London and enjoy a regular sort of club life; send the
other to some rural district, preposterously called 'salubrious.'
Look at these men when they have both reached the age of forty-five.
The London man has preserved his figure: the rural man has a paunch.
The London man has an interesting delicacy of complexion: the face of
the rural man is coarse-grained and perhaps jowly."