I have not perceived that I was less stiff in my limbs, or less footsore, on the morning after the day of the sport, than on the other morning.
In all these cases, stimulants upon the mind seem to act rather by taking off the attention from the bodily fatigue, than by really and truly counteracting it.

If the energy of my mind had really counteracted the fatigue of my body, why should I feel tired the next morning?
if the stimulus of the hounds had as completely overcome the fatigue of the journey in reality, as it did in appearance, why should the horse be tired sooner than if he had not gone the forty miles?
I happen to have a very bad fit of the toothache at the time I am writing this.

In the eagerness of composition, I every now and then, for a moment or two, forget it.

Yet I cannot help thinking that the process, which causes the pain, is still going forwards, and that the nerves which carry the information of it to the brain are even during these moments demanding attention and room for their appropriate vibrations.
The multiplicity of vibrations of another kind may perhaps prevent their admission, or overcome them for a time when admitted, till a shoot of extraordinary energy puts all other vibration to the rout, destroys the vividness of my argumentative conceptions, and rides triumphant in the brain.

In this case, as in the others, the mind seems to have little or no power in counteracting or curing the disorder, but merely possesses a power, if strongly excited, of fixing its attention on other subjects.
I do not, however, mean to say that a sound and vigorous mind has no tendency whatever to keep the body in a similar state.