1884 ILLNESS OF HIS SECOND DAUGHTER 379 



And although he writes, "I would give a good 

 deal not to face a lot of people next week," ..." I 

 have the feelings of a wounded wild beast and hate 

 the sight of all but my best friends," he hid away his 

 feelings, and made this the occasion for a very witty 

 speech, of which, alas ! I remember nothing but a 

 delightfully mixed polyglot exordium in French, 

 German, and Italian, the result, he declared, of his 

 recent excursion to foreign parts, which had 

 obliterated the recollection of his native speech. 



During his second absence he appointed his 

 youngest daughter secretary to look after necessary 

 correspondence, about which he forwarded instructions 

 from time to time. 



The chief matters of interest in the letters of this 

 period are accounts of health and travel, sometimes 

 serious, more often jesting, for the letters were 

 generally written in the bright intervals between 

 his dark days : business of the Eoyal Society, and 

 the publication of the new edition of the Lessons in 

 Elementary Physiology, upon which he and Dr. Foster 

 had been at work during the autumn. But the four 

 months abroad were not productive of very great 

 good ; the weather was unpropitious for an invalid 

 "as usual, a quite unusual season" while his mind 

 was oppressed by the reports of his daughter's illness. 

 Under these circumstances recovery was slow and 

 travel comfortless; all the Englishman's love of 

 home breaks out in his letter of April 8, when he set 

 foot again on English soil. 



