350 LIFE AT DOWN. JETAT. 33-45. 



scope but it was the need which he found for higher powers 

 that induced him, in 1846, to buy a compound microscope. 

 He wrote to Hooker : " When I was drawing with L., I 

 was so delighted with the appearance of the objects, especially 

 with their perspective, as seen through the weak powers of a 

 good compound microscope, that I am going to order one ; 

 indeed, I often have structures in which the -^ is not power 

 enough." 



During part of the time covered by the present chapter, my 

 father suffered perhaps more from ill-health than at any other 

 time of his life. He felt severely the depressing influence of 

 these long years of illness ; thus as early as 1840 he wrote to 

 Fox : " I am grown a dull, old, spiritless dog to what I used 

 to be. One gets stupider as one grows older I think." It is 

 not wonderful that he should so have written, it is rather 

 to be wondered at that his spirit withstood so great and 

 constant a strain. He wrote to Sir J. Hooker in 1845 : 

 " You are very kind, in your enquiries about my health ; I 

 have nothing to say about it, being always much the same, 

 some days better and some worse. I believe I have not 

 had one whole day, or rather night, without my stomach 

 having been greatly disordered, during the last three years, 

 and most days great prostration of strength : thank you for 

 your kindness ; many of my friends, I believe, think me a 

 hypochondriac." 



Again, in 1849, he notes in his diary: "January 1st to 

 March loth. Health very bad, with much sickness and 

 failure of power. Worked on all well days." This was 

 written just before his first visit to Dr. Gully's Water-Cure 

 Establishment at Malvern. In April of the same year he 

 wrote : " I believe I am going on very well, but I am rather 

 weary of my present inactive life, and the water-cure has the 

 most extraordinary effect in producing indolence and stagna- 

 tion of mind : till experiencing it, I could not have believed 

 it possible. I now increase in weight, have escaped sickness 





