1856. VISIT TO MELROSE. 301 



thoughts since I remember. Often formerly as much as 

 now, have they been uppermost. Do not, therefore, think 

 me given over to unusual or unworthy sorrow." 



To a fellow-invalid like Daniel Macmillan, he confesses 

 more freely in June to being " very languid, weary, and unfit 

 for work of all kinds. To write even this letter is an effort, 

 and I feel as if to lie down and sleep were the only thing 

 worth doing. I have often been as ill before : but like you, 

 I feel that some time must be the last, and I often faith- 

 lessly and selfishly wish it had come. 



" If I go out of town this autumn it will be to some place 

 near at hand, where I can be quite at rest, and lounge idly 

 back into vigour again. This long cold spring has put its 

 mark upon me, and I slowly find myself burning nearer to 

 the socket. ... I have no hope of being in Cambridge 

 this year. I am not well enough to travel willingly, and 

 have no prospect of being compelled to go south, though 

 perhaps I may be." 



From Melrose, whither he retired for six weeks in autumn, 

 he writes to his brother Daniel : " The weather has not been 

 propitious, yet I have contrived to spend a great deal of 

 time in the open air, and have profited by it. ... The last 

 three months, up to the close of July, were spent in almost 

 continual physical uneasiness, rising often to pain ; and that / 

 is not pleasant But as I now am, I should be very, very 

 ungrateful to the Giver of all good gifts, if I made great 

 complaint ; and the future I leave with Him. I enjoy the 

 quiet, and on a Sabbath like this can meditate on that great 

 world beyond the grave towards which I perceptibly ap- 

 proach nearer and nearer each summer in a way I cannot 

 do in the whirl of town life." 



While at Melrose, he prepared for the press what has 

 been unquestionably the most popular of his writings, 



