igoi.] PARTS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY 321 



private comment on what they call " my retirement " was. 

 So to get my cough really cured, and drive constitutional 

 coincidences out of the field I went to bed with the best 

 possible effects (really). I think the doctor will let me get 

 up to-morrow, but he wants me to keep safe from snow 

 chills. 



March 24, 1901. 



Here is another bit [of autobiography] begging your read- 

 ing when you are inclined, and now" Birth, Parentage, &c.," 

 is gone up to London. I should so very much like (if not too 

 much trouble) if you would make some sort of mark on the 

 margin of your copy, wherever you think some alteration is 

 needed, and then when I have the pleasure of seeing you 

 here we could go comfortably into it. 



Now (as the fates permit) I am working on " The Severn 

 and the Wye " (chap. V.), and I think it will be interesting, 

 there is such a variety of fresh observation, " Fish, fishers, 

 and fisheries," some specialities in zoology and semi-marine 

 botany, and something of a good many sorts of things. 



I am much mended and doctor says I may tell you I am 

 getting on all right, but the long illness has pulled me down 

 very much so that I am only allowed at present to be up in 

 my own room such a little thing brings the cough back 

 and we have snow showers still but as soon as ever I can 

 get about again I have no reason to doubt I should be 

 much as usual. 



March 29, 1901. 



I seem very unlucky this winter, but on Tuesday, when I 

 hoped I was pretty well again, a chill so bad and so 

 strangely sudden seized me, that breathing got hurried, I 

 could not speak with comfort, and an acute pain set in in 

 my right side. Doctor set to work and did not mention 

 that congestion of the lungs was present, but taking affairs 

 at once did great good, and the enemy was routed ; still, I 

 am a good deal pulled down, and do not mean risking 

 another chill at present. I had greatly hoped this time not 

 to tell you any long stories about my health, but it is no 

 good pretending, so please you must let your friendly 

 sympathy in my troubles be my excuse. 



I wonder what you will think of the enclosed [" copy"]. 

 I incline to think the subjects are rather nice, but that as 

 we get on bits of this may fit into future papers, or of future 

 papers here ? It seems to me best to write whatever I can 

 as well as I can manage, and sift by and by. " Am not I 

 'umble " (as Uriah Heap says) about Edward I. ? (page 13). 



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