ch. iv J REMINISCENCES. 109 



worked, must be constantly borne in mind. He bore his 

 illness with such uncomplaining patience, that even his 

 children can hardly, I believe, realise the extent of his 

 habitual suffering. In their case the difficulty is heightened 

 by the fact that, from the days of their earliest recollections, 

 they saw him in constant ill-health, and saw him, in spite 

 of it, full of pleasure in what pleased them. Thus, in later 

 life, their perception of what he endured had to be disen- 

 tangled from the impression produced in childhood by con- 

 stant genial kindness under conditions of unrecognised diffi- 

 culty. No one indeed, except my mother, knows the full 

 amount of suffering he endured, or the full amount of his 

 wonderful patience. For all the latter years of his life she 

 never left him for a night ; and her days were so planned 

 that all his resting hours might be shared with her. She 

 shielded him from every avoidable annoyance, and omitted 

 nothing that might save him trouble, or prevent him be- 

 coming overtired, or that might alleviate the many discom- 

 forts of his ill-health. I hesitate to speak thus freely of a 

 thing so sacred as the life-long devotion which prompted all 

 this constant and tender care. But it is, I repeat, a princi- 

 pal feature of his life, that for nearly forty years he never 

 knew one day of the health of ordinary men, and that thus 

 his life was one long struggle against the weariness and 

 strain of sickness. And this cannot be told without speak- 

 ing of the one condition which enabled him to bear the 

 strain and fight out the struggle to the end. 



