3G CONCLUSION. [ch. xviii. 



more than it used to do, but I have nothing else to do, and 

 whether one is worn out a year or two sooner or later signi- 

 fies but little." 



A similar feeling is shown in a letter to Sir J. D. Hooker 

 of June 15, 1881. My father was staying at Patterdale, and 

 wrote : " I am rather despondent about myself. ... I 

 have not the heart or strength to begin any investigation 

 lasting years, which is the only thing I enjoy, and I have no 

 little jobs which I can do." 



In July, 1881, he wrote to Mr. Wallace : " We have just 

 returned home after spending five weeks on Ullswater ; the 

 scenery is quite charming, but I cannot walk, and every- 

 things tires me, even seeing scenery. . . . What I shall do 

 with my few remaining years of life I can hardly tell. I 

 have everything to make me happy and contented, but life 

 has become very wearisome to me." He was, however, able 

 to do a good deal of work, and that of a trying sort,* dur- 

 ing the autumn of 1881, but towards the end of the year, 

 he was clearly in need of rest : and during the winter was 

 in a lower condition than was usual with him. 



On December 13, he went for a week to his daughter's 

 house in Bryanston Street. During his stay in London he 

 went to call on Mr. Komanes, and was seized when on the 

 door-step with an attack apparently of the same kind as 

 those which afterwards became so frequent. The rest of 

 the incident, which I give in Mr. Eomanes' words, is inter- 

 esting too from a different point of view, as giving one 

 more illustration of my father's scrupulous consideration 

 for others : 



" I happened to be out, but my butler, observing that 

 Mr. Darwin was ill, asked him to come in. He said he 

 would prefer going home, and although the butler urged 

 him to wait at least until a cab could be fetched, he said he 

 would rather not give so much trouble. For the same rea- 

 son he refused to allow the butler to accompany him. 

 Accordingly he watched him walking with difficulty to- 

 wards the direction in which cabs were to be met with, and 

 saw that, when he had got about three hundred yards from 

 the house, he staggered and caught hold of the park-rail- 

 ings as if to prevent himself from falling. The butler 

 therefore hastened to his assistance, but after a few seconds 

 saw him turn round with the evident purpose of retracing 



* On the action of carbonate of ammonia on roots and leaves. 



