CAMBRIDGE 79 



broke down entirely in health and had to lose a term 

 and go home. I suffered from intermittent pulse and 

 a variety of brain symptoms of an alarming kind. A 

 mill seemed to be working inside my head ; I could 

 not banish obsessing ideas ; at times I could hardly 

 read a book, and found it painful even to look at a 

 printed page. Fortunately, I did not suffer from 

 sleeplessness, and my digestion failed but little. 

 Even a brief interval of complete mental rest did me 

 good, and it seemed as if a long dose of it might 

 wholly restore me. It would have been madness to 

 continue the kind of studious life that I had been 

 leading. I had been much too zealous, had worked 

 too irregularly and in too many directions, and had 

 done myself serious harm. It was as though I had 

 tried to make a steam-engine perform more work than 

 it was constructed for, by tampering with its safety 

 valve and thereby straining its mechanism. Happily, 

 the human body may sometimes repair itself, which 

 the steam-engine cannot. 



As it had become impossible for me to continue 

 reading for mathematical honours, I abandoned all 

 further intention of trying for them, and occupied part 

 of my remaining time at Cambridge in attending 

 medical lectures to fill up the necessary quota of 

 attendances that should qualify for a medical degree. 

 I spent my third long vacation in travelling with my 

 sister Emma in Germany. We stayed some weeks 

 in Dresden, where we joined the Hallams and ac- 

 companied them during a little further travel, and 

 then I took my sister round by Vienna and back 

 home. Those were days of travelling by voiturier 

 and diligence. 



