I was advised to plunge immediately into a course of fashionable novels.

It was a great relief to me; but as my head was by no means very clear, I sometimes jumbled strangely together the civilized rogues and assassins of Mr.Bulwer, and the wild men, women, and children slayers of Mr.Cooper; and, truly, between them, I passed my dreams in very bad company.
Still I could not stand, nor even sit upright.

What was I to read next?
A happy thought struck me.

I determined upon beginning with Waverley, and reading through (not for the first time certainly) the whole series.

And what a world did I enter upon! The wholesome vigour of every page seemed to communicate itself to my nerves; I ceased to be languid and fretful, and though still a cripple, I certainly enjoyed myself most completely, as long as my treat lasted; but this was a shorter time than any one would believe, who has not found how such volumes melt, before the constant reading of a long idle day.
When it was over, however, I had the pleasure of finding that I could walk half a dozen yards at a time, and take short airings in an open carriage; and better still, could sleep quietly.
It was no very agreeable conviction which greeted my recovery, that our Cincinnati speculation for my son would in no way answer our expectation; and very soon after, he was again seized with the bilious fever of the country, which terminated in that most distressing of all maladies, an ague.