340 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



" Apparently healthier men than I die about us. ... My 

 trouble will probably finish me in the course of time, if it goes on, 

 but it can be eradicated by a surgical operation, and that I will 

 probably have to undergo sooner or later. gives me a remark- 

 able case of a permanent cure of a worse case than mine by some 

 surgery." 



And then a week later he again wrote to his wife pathetically: 

 "The sky looks beautiful out of the window, and I dare say that in 

 a few days the country will be charming. I am anxious to get out, 

 but cannot yet awhile." 



Steadily he grew worse and worse, and then on March 31, he 

 wrote with cheerful optimism in that last letter sent to his aunt: 



" I have been confined to my room, barring a few walks out, for 

 five weeks to-day; some of the days confined to bed. 



"I have suffered great pain and am now recovering slowly from 

 the depression caused by powerful drugs taken for relief. My 

 dangerous symptoms have passed away, but the morphia-bella- 

 donna combination makes the strongest constitution stagger. The 

 mental depression is dreadful so that nothing in life is in any degree 

 enjoyable, except an occasional draught of ice water. So I pity 

 everybody I hear of that is sick, and am glad to see so many people 

 well. To be well seems to me now to be something extraordi- 

 narily fortunate." 



He continued on until April 12, and then in the room which he 

 had so long used as a study, surrounded by the objects of his life- 

 long attentions, the end came and he passed into the future. 



Once he wrote: 



"I dare not deny a future life, and as we all probably wish it, 

 in case it should be happy, we may seek for phenomena which 

 indicate the existence of such a state of happiness in the human 

 mind in this world. ... If we believe in a development into a 

 future life, we must believe that as many have gone before us, 

 that future state must be well populated. If this be true I see no 

 difficulty in supporting that communication, and hence prayer, is 

 a reasonable thing." 



The peace that passeth all understanding and the knowledge of 

 the future are now his. 



