CHAPTER X.
FADS AND FANCIES.
In a recent page I have alluded to sundry "fads and fancies of the day," some of greater and others of lesser import, and I have been mixed up in two or three of them.

For example;--as an undergraduate at Oxford I starved myself in the matter of sugar, by way of somehow discouraging the slave-trade; I don't know that either Caesar or Pompey was any the better for my small self-sacrifice; but as a trifling fact, I may mention that I then followed some of the more straitlaced fashions of Clapham.

Also, when in lodgings after my degree, I resolved to leave off meat, bought an immense Cheshire cheese, and, after two months of part-consumption thereof, reduced my native strength to such utter weakness as quite to endanger health.

So I had to relapse into the old carnality of mutton chops, like other folk: such extreme virtue doesn't pay.
Of course abstinence from all stimulant has had its hold on me heretofore, as it has upon many others,--but, after a persistent six months of only water, my nerve power was so exhausted (I was working hard at the time as editor of "The Anglo-Saxon," a long extinct magazine) that my wise doctor enjoined wine and whisky--of course in moderation; and so my fluttering heart soon recovered, and I have been well ever since.
Now about temperance, let me say thus much.

Of course, I must approve the modern very philanthropic movement, but only in its rational aspect of moderation.