Several years now elapse before I resume my diary. I continued at
Washington working in the Attorney-General's department through '66 and
'67, and some time afterward. In February '73 I was stricken down by
paralysis, gave up my desk, and migrated to Camden, New Jersey, where
I lived during '74 and '75, quite unwell--but after that began to grow
better; commenc'd going for weeks at a time, even for months, down in
the country, to a charmingly recluse and rural spot along Timber creek,
twelve or thirteen miles from where it enters the Delaware river.
Domicil'd at the farm-house of my friends, the Staffords, near by, I
lived half the time along this creek and its adjacent fields and lanes.
And it is to my life here that I, perhaps, owe partial recovery (a
sort of second wind, or semi-renewal of the lease of life) from the
prostration of 1874-'75. If the notes of that outdoor life could only
prove as glowing to you, reader dear, as the experience itself was to
me. Doubtless in the course of the following, the fact of invalidism
will crop out, (I call myself _a half-Paralytic_ these days, and
reverently bless the Lord it is no worse,) between some of the
lines--but I get my share of fun and healthy hours, and shall try to
indicate them. (The trick is, I find, to tone your wants and tastes low
down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the
skies.)