xi.J FAILURE OF HEALTH. 355 



home, or bivouacs on the glaciers these had all done 

 their work on a frame which if more than usually 

 muscular and agile, had in it probably some inherent 

 weakness. Since the illness in the summer of 1843 he 

 had never maintained the same unbroken health he had 

 enjoyed before ; ailments from time to time had told 

 him that he ' was not now that strength ' he once 

 had been, yet much hard work both bodily and mental 

 had been undergone since. He had passed through the 

 trying Alpine summers of 1844 and 1846; with the 

 exception of one session, he had carried on his winter 

 work as vigorously as ever ; and his experiments on 

 heat had been, if intermittent, never abandoned. But 

 that rapid and severe Norwegian summer had strained 

 his strength to the last fibre, and his health, perhaps 

 already undermined, suddenly gave way. On the 

 free use of his energies a hand of stern arrest was 

 laid at once and for ever. As far as scientific discovery 

 concerned, it was as though he now heard a voice 

 that said, ' Thus far and no farther/ Hitherto side by 

 side with his scientific compeers he had scaled the hard 

 steep of discovery, intent mainly on the truths to be 

 attained, but not insensible to the reputation that waits 

 on their attainment. His foot was already on all but the 

 highest ridge : one step more had placed him on that 

 topmost eminence. But that step was not allowed. It 

 was a severe trial for flesh and blood. We are now to 

 see how he bore it. 



All December 1851 Forbes lay hanging between life and 

 death. About the middle of January 1852, he was so far 

 recovered as to be able to move, attended by Mrs. Forbes 

 and his family, from Edinburgh to the milder air of 

 Clifton. This In c.iin.- his head-quarters for the next two 

 years, and there under the kind and skilful care of the 

 Dr. Symonds his condition gradually improved 

 The physician to whom he owed so much soon beeanie 

 ml, and continued so to the la 



The BumnuT of 1852 was ili, \ed by a sojourn of 

 nearly two mon Meside and Grasmere, and the 



A A 



