1893 INFLUENZA 385 



What a little goose you are to go having bad dreams about 

 me who am like a stalled ox browsing in idle comfort in 

 fact, idle is no word for it. Sloth is the right epithet. I can't 

 get myself to do anything but potter in the garden, which is 

 looking lovely. 



On June 21 he went to Cambridge for the Harvey 

 Celebration at Gonville and Caius College, and made a 

 short speech. 



The dinner last night (he writes) was a long affair, and I 

 was the last speaker ; but I got through my speech very well, 

 and was heard by everybody, I am told. 



But as is the way with influenza, it was thrown off in 

 the summer only to return the next winter, and on the eve 

 of the Royal Society Anniversary Dinner he writes to Sir 

 M. Foster: 



I am in rather a shaky and voiceless condition, and unless 

 I am more up to the mark to-morrow morning I shall have to 

 forego the dinner, and, what is worse, the chat with you after- 

 wards. 



One consequence of the spring attack of influenza was 

 that this year he went once more to the Maloja, staying 

 there from July 21 to August 25. 



HODESLEA, EASTBOURNE, July 9, 1893. 



MY DEAR HOOKER What has happened to the x meeting you 

 proposed? However, it does not matter much to me now, as 

 Hames, who gave me a thorough overhauling in London, has 

 packed me off to the Maloja again, and we start, if we can, on 

 the 1 7th. 



It is a great nuisance, but the dregs of influenza and the hot 

 weather between them have brought the weakness of my heart 

 to the front, and I am gravitating to the condition in which I 

 was five or six years ago. So I must try the remedy which was 

 so effectual last time. 



We are neither of us very fit, and shall have to be taken 

 charge of by a courier. Fancy coming to that ! 



Let me be a warning to you, my dear old man. Don't go 

 giving lectures at Oxford and making speeches at Cambridge, 

 and above all things don't, oh don't go getting influenza, the 

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