JOHN STUART MILL. 335 



of leisure would do anything." The same letter incidentally notices 

 that Mrs. Taylor joined the party, and accompanied John in his tour, 

 while the young people remained at Lausanne. We have no further 

 references to this illness ; he got round in time, but he retained to the 

 end of his life an almost ceaseless spasmodic twitching over one eye. 

 His renewed capability for work is shown by the dates of his writings 

 immediately subsequent. He had many illnesses afterward, but I do 

 not know that any one was so markedly an affection of the brain as 

 on this occasion. 



Two years and a half later, in the beginning of 1839, he went to 

 Italy, and was away six months on sick-leave. The expressions that 

 I shall quote from the correspondence are my only means of knowing 

 the nature and extent of his malady. On January 17th Henry writes : 

 " As to John's health, none of us believe that it is anything very se- 

 rious ; our means of judging are his looks when he was here, and also 

 what we have heard from Dr. Arnott. We are told, however, that 

 his sending him away is because his pains in the chest, which are the 

 symptoms, make it seem that a winter in Italy just now will afford 

 him sensible and permanent benefit for the whole of his life. . . . That 

 this might have turned to gout." The next letter is one from himself, 

 dated Rome, March 11th. He says : " I have returned here after 

 passing about three weeks very pleasantly in Naples, and the country 

 about it. I did not for some time get any better, but I think I am 

 now, though very slowly, improving, ever since I left off animal food, 

 and took to living almost entirely on macaroni. I began this experi- 

 ment about a fortnight ago, and it seems to succeed better than any 

 of the other experiments I have tried." The remainder of the letter 

 describes Naples and neighborhood "Pompeii, Baia?, Psestum, etc." 

 Ten days later he writes : " As for me I am going on well too not 

 that my health is at all better ; but I have gradually got quite recon- 

 ciled to the idea of returning in much the same state of health as when 

 I left England ; it is by care and regimen that I must hope to get well, 

 and, if I can only avoid getting worse, I shall have no great reason to 

 complain, as hardly anybody continues after my age (thirty-three) to 

 have the same vigorous health they had in early youth. In the mean 

 time it is something to have so good an opportunity of seeing Italy." 

 Again, he writes on May 31st, from Munich on his way home : "I am 

 not at all cured, but I cease to care much about it, I am as fit for all 

 my occupations as I was before, and as capable of bodily exertion as I 

 have been of late years only I have not quite so good a stomach." 

 He then dilates on the pleasures of his Italian tour, to which he added 

 the Tyrol. He returned to his office-work on July 1st. The only 

 indication of his state is in a letter from Henry : " John is come back 

 looking tolerably well ; he is considerably thinner, however." We 

 infer that his primary affection was in the chest, and to this was added 



