THE LAST LECTURING SEASON. 259 



months; the season thus again including sixty-two 

 lectures. 



October llth, 1888, saw the beginning of my 

 father's last lecturing season. On that day he visited 

 Malvern, and gave two lectures, the first on " Insect 

 Transformations " at three o'clock, and the second, on 

 " The Horse and his Master " at eight. Both this 

 month and the next were fully occupied; and hy 

 Christmas he had delivered thirty -two lectures in all. 



His life's work was now very nearly at an end. I 

 returned home towards the end of November, for a visit 

 of a few weeks, and noticed little change in him, 

 except that he seemed rather more absent than usual, 

 and rather more susceptible to fatigue. But he was 

 away lecturing during a considerable portion of my 

 stay, and, when at home, was generally hard at work 

 in his study, after his manner; so that I saw com- 

 paratively little of him. On the 8th of January he 

 started off to spend a week with some friends at South 

 Norwood, and on the morning of that day I saw him 

 for the last time. 



I cannot help thinking that even now, although no 

 traces of the disease which carried him off had as yet 

 appeared, his constitution was breaking up. Now and 

 then as I afterwards learned he would give way to 

 drowsiness, and would fall asleep in his chair, or even 

 at the table. He took cold repeatedly, and complained 

 more than usual of pains in the chest. And the strain 

 of the incessant work and the constant railway travel- 

 ling seemed to be telling upon him, although at times 

 R 2 



