CONCLUSION. 345 



the course of the two years and more that it 

 lasted I was under five of the leading London 

 physicians. Altogether I had some forty pre- 

 scriptions, and took something like sixty drugs, 

 besides being put on diet. It was not the 

 slightest use, and it became evident that they 

 had no idea what was really the matter with 

 me. The pain went on, burn, burn, burn. If 

 I wrote a volume I could not describe it to 

 you, this terrible scorching pain, night and 

 day. There is nothing in medical books like 

 it, except the pain that follows corrosive sub- 

 limate which burns the tissues. It was at 

 times so maddening that I dreaded to go a 

 few miles alone by rail lest I should throw 

 myself out of the window of the carriage. I 

 worked and wrote all this time, and some of 

 my best work was done in this intense agony. 

 I received letters from New Zealand, from the 

 United States, even from the islands of the 

 Pacific, from people who had read my writings. 

 It seemed so strange that I should read these 

 letters, and yet all the time to be writhing in 

 agony. 



" At last, in April, 1885, nature gave way, 



