Ch IV.] REMINISCENCES. 81 



some of the distinguished visitors to the Medical Congress 

 (1881), was to him a severe exertion. 



The early morning was the only time at which he could 

 make any effort of the kind, with comparative impunity. 

 Thus it came about that the visits he paid to his scientific 

 friends in London were by preference made as early as ten in 

 the morning. For the same reason he started on his journeys 

 by the earliest possible train, and used to arrive at the houses 

 of relatives in London when they were beginning their day. 



He kept an accurate journal of the days on which he worked 

 and those on which his ill health prevented him from working, 

 so that it would be possible to tell how many were idle days 

 in any given year. In this journal — a little yellow Letts's 

 Diary, which lay open on his mantel-piece^ piled on the diaries 

 of previous years — he also entered the day on which he 

 started for a holiday and that of his return. 



The most frequent holidays were visits of a week to 

 London, either to his brother's house (6 Queen Anne Street), 

 or to his daughter's (4 Bryanston Street). He was generally 

 persuaded by my mother to take these short holidays, when 

 it became clear from the frequency of " bad days," or from 

 the swimming of his head, that he was being overworked. 

 Ho went unwillingly, and tried to drive hard bargains, stipu- 

 lating, for instance, that he should come home in five days 

 instead of six. The discomfort of a journey to him was, at 

 least latterly, chiefly in the anticipation, and in the miserable 

 sinking feeling from which he suffered immediately before the 

 start ; even a fairly long journey, such as that to Coniston, 

 tired him wonderfully little, considering how much an invalid 

 he was ; and he certainly enjoyed it in an almost boyish way, 

 and to a curious degree. 



Although, as he has said, some of his aesthetic tastes had 

 suffered a gradual decay, his love of scenery remained fresh 

 and strong. Every walk at Coniston was a fresh delight, and 

 he was never tired of praising the beauty of the broken hilly 

 country at the head of the lake. 



Besides these longer holidays, there were shorter visits 

 to various relatives — to his brother-in-law's house, close to 

 Leith Hill, and to his son near Southampton. He always par- 

 ticularly enjoyed rambling over rough open country, such as 

 the commons near Leith Hill and Southampton, the heath- 

 covered wastes of Ashdown Forest, or the delightful " Rough " 

 near the house of his friend Sir Thomas Farrer. He never 

 was quite idle even on these holidays, and found things to 

 observe. At Hartfield he watched Drosera catching insects, 



