Last Years. 385 



moments of exhilaration or encouragement that came 

 from time to time, my gallant old friend's life was 

 steadily ebbing away. The case in many outward 

 respects simulated pulmonary consumption. The ap- 

 proach of winter filled him with dread, but inexorable 

 tasks prevented his retreat southward until February, 

 when, accompanied by his sister, he went to Thomas- 

 ville, Georgia. Meanwhile in Spencer's letters the 

 note of alarm is very distinctly heard : 



38 QUEEN'S GARDENS, LONDON, W., January j, 

 MY DEAR YOUMANS : I have been looking for a letter 

 from you for some little time, and hope that the rather 

 long interval does not indicate any disturbance in your 

 health from the cold weather, although I decidedly fear it. 

 I regret greatly that you so persistently resist the sugges- 

 tions to go South, and continually hope that you may run 

 risks without evil, although you have so many times ex- 

 perienced evil from doing this. 



January fj, 1883. 



The long interval since I heard from you leads me to 

 fear that you are ill, or at any rate suffering seriously from 

 the cold weather. Pray go South. 



January 14, 1883. 



After sending off my note yesterday, in some anxiety 

 about your state, I was glad to get a letter from you this 

 morning which relieved me a little, though not fully, for it 

 appears that the winter is telling upon you, if not in a re- 

 newed pulmonary attack, still in other ways. 



Why will you, against your better knowledge, yield to 

 this American mania of sacrificing yourself in trying to do 

 more work ? You accept in theory the gospel of relaxa- 

 tion ; why can you not act upon it ? What is the use of 

 both abridging life and making it full of physical miseries, 

 all in the hope of achieving a little more, arid eventually 



