XL] /'_ / 1L URE OF HEALTH. 37 1 



To E. C. BATTEN, ESQ. 



* EDINBURGH, June 29?A, 1856. 



* ... I have been enjoying a little book by a co- 

 barrister of yours, Alfred Wills, of the Middle Temple 

 " Wanderings in the High Alps." He must be a young 

 man of the right stuff; I should like to know him. Try 

 to hear something of him and to see his book, which is 

 modest, sensible, and spirited. . . . The perusal of Wills' 

 b<uk has inflamed my Alpine associations and made me 

 long to taste the air once more. I went yesterday with 

 my children to the paper mill at Colinton, and scrambled 

 with tin -m along the river's banks, where I used to catch 

 minnows, and to build castles in the air, I believe/ 



Kindred tastes quickly brought about this acquaint- 

 ance. They were to have met in the summer of 1857. 

 thus that Forbes announces his disappointment : 



To A. WILLS, ESQ. 



* CLIFTON, BRISTOL, July lth, 1857. 



'You will probably be surprised at the place from 



whence I date. I know that you will be sorry when I tell 



you that having reached Folkestone with part of my family 



on my way abroad, I had an illness which though to a 



person in better ordinary health than myself it might have 



caused but a slight detention, debilitated me so much that 



is forced reluctantly to give up my plan of visiting 



zerland, with, I must own, but feeble hopes that 



the state of my health will allow me even another year 



to go abroad with that freedom from anxiety to myself 



others which alone can give even to our highest 



pleasures more than a pn -carious and doubtful value. 



All hope of meeting you under the shadow of Mont Blanc 



is ti at an end ; departed like other pleasant 



hopes which we have to surrender by slow decrees let 



b, not without extracting some good from dis- 



. taking Clifton on the way, Foil 



B B '2 



