RECOLLECTIONS BY DR. DREWITT 237 



and devoted nursing, attacks of illness became 

 less acute and life more bearable, scarcely a 

 day was passed without pain, and there was no 

 escape from utter helplessness. 



' Few even of his friends knew how complete 

 this helplessness was, and under what difficulties 

 existence was carried on. They scarcely realised 

 that during the last ten years of his life he was 

 not only unable to stand, but even to turn from 

 side to side without help, and that the only 

 possible exercise was taken in a bath-chair, into 

 which and out of which he was lifted in a sheet 

 by his servants. 



' Yet he accounted his life a happy one — 

 happier than that of most — and he was continu- 

 ally employed, either in untold acts of kindness 

 — often to mere strangers — or in preparing the 

 two beautiful works on ornithology by which, 

 when those who knew and loved him are no 

 more, his name will chiefly be remembered. 



' And through it all there was no thought of 

 self-advertisement, no wish for notoriety. He 

 seemed free from all the meaner aims and 

 ambitions. There was no consciousness even of 

 social position. 



