1858 RETIRES FROM THE CANVASS. 323 



Such suspense was not helpful to physical wellbeing. 

 " I cannot write at length," he says, "for I have an open 

 blister on my right arm, and every now and then it makes 

 my nerves quiver as if my elbow were laid on a RuhmkofFs 

 coil. This does not conduce to legible writing or elegant 

 composition." 



On May 2oth, he encloses to his brother a letter of with- 

 drawal, saying, "The enclosed will let you know that I 

 have retired from the Chemistry Chair. I need not tell 

 you that to do this has cost a sore effort. I was sure of the 

 Chair. A large majority of the Council had declared for 

 me. . . . The kindness, respect, and admiration unso- 

 licitedly expressed towards me by people I never saw, have 

 unspeakably touched and humbled me. 



" The Chair, you know, was the object of my youthful 

 ambition. A position of honour and influence is afforded 

 by it such as few positions give. Why then refuse it? 

 Simply because it would have been a fatal promotion. I 

 could not have faced the physical labour. So convinced 

 was I of this that I had no purpose of standing. ... I 

 accept the issue without repining. We have both been 

 taught in different ways that ' man proposes, but God dis- 

 poses.' When He took away my health, He taught me to 

 lay aside as unrealizable my ambition ; and two years ago 

 I fully resigned myself to see the Chemistry Chair go past 

 me. I should be the most thankless of men if I made 

 light of what is left me, or disallowed the comforts and 

 honours of my present appointment. The one point which 

 more than any other weighed with me was the possibility 

 of my allowing a valetudinarian pusillanimity to keep me 

 from hazarding new duties. 



" So farewell the dream that I should fill the Chair of 

 Y 2 



