326 CONCLUSION. [Ch. XVIIL 



June 15, 1881. My father was staying at Patterdale, and 

 wrote : " I am rather despondent about myself .... I have 

 not the heart or strength to begin any investigation lasting 

 years, which is the only thing I enjoy, and I have no little 

 jobs which I can do." 



In July, 1881, he wrote to Mr. Wallace: "We have just 

 returned home after spending five weeks on Ullswater; the 

 scenery is quite charming, but I cannot walk, and everything 

 tires me, even seeing scenery .... What I shall do with my 

 few remaining years of life I can hardly tell. I have every- 

 thing to make me happy and contented, but life has become 

 very wearisome to me." He was, however, able to do a good 

 deal of work, and that of a trying sort,* during the autumn of 

 1881, but towards the end of the year, he was clearly in need 

 of rest : and during the winter was in a lower condition than 

 was usual with him. 



On December 13, he went for a week to his daughter's house 

 in Bryanston Street. During his stay in London he went to 

 call on Mr. Komanes, and was seized when on the door-step 

 with an attack apparently of the same kind as those which 

 afterwards became so frequent. The rest of the incident, 

 which I give in Mr. Romanes' words, is interesting too from a 

 different point of view, as giving one more illustration of my 

 father's scrupulous consideration for others : — 



" I happened to be out, but my butler, observing that Mr. 

 Darwin was ill, asked him to come in. He said he would 

 prefer going home, and although the butler urged him to wait 

 at least until a cab could be fetched, he said he would rather 

 not give so much trouble. For the same reason he refused to 

 allow the butler to accompany him. Accordingly he watched 

 him walking with difficulty towards the direction in which cabs 

 were to be met with, and saw that, when he had got about 

 three hundred yards from the house, he staggered and caught 

 hold of the park-railings as if to prevent himself from falling. 

 The butler therefore hastened to his assistance, but after a few 

 seconds saw him turn round with the evident purpose of 

 retracing his steps to my house. However, after he had 

 returned part of the way he seems to have felt better, for he 

 again changed his mind, and proceeded to find a cab." 



During the last week of February and in the beginning of 

 March, attacks of pain in the region of the heart, with irre- 

 gularity of the pulse, became frequent, coming on indeed 

 nearly every afternoon. A seizure of this sort occurred about 



* On the action of carbonate of ammonia on roots and leaveg. 



