xxvi BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 



vigour of mind. It is wonderful that in such suffering, and in 

 the consciousness of approaching dissolution the mind should 

 have been capable of dwelling calmly upon subjects of abstract 

 interest, such as investigations in pure mathematics ; he himself 

 felt that there was something strange in the occupation. In a 

 note accompanying a mathematical paper he writes to me : "I 

 have been very miserable all this week. God will mend it, 

 when His will is. It seems strange that my mind still runs at 

 all upon triangles, and I am not at all sure that it is right it 

 should. I need not tell you to think charitably of me in this 

 as in other respects." His mind by no means however dwelt 

 upon triangles to the exclusion of more solemn subjects, as I 

 shall have occasion to shew more fully presently ; but it ap- 

 peared to have a vigour of action and a fulness of matter which 

 no external circumstances could affect, and so far as my obser- 

 vation went he conversed with the same facility and command 

 of his subject during his illness, as in earlier days. 



It would be only painful to draw as vivid a picture as might 

 be easily drawn of the protracted sufferings which he had to 

 endure. Medicine could do nothing more for him than mitigate 

 the severity of the disease, which seemed to claim as its own 

 one muscle after another, as it slowly approached the heart. 

 " One twitch there" said he to me one day, speaking of his 

 heart, " and then I shall know the great secret." For a con- 

 siderable period, reading (as might be supposed) was a relief; 

 the weary hours of night, sometimes rendered horrible by the 

 fear of dreams if sleep should come upon him 1 , were beguiled 

 with books, a lamp suspended over his head giving him the 

 necessary light. By and bye however this resource also failed : 

 the eyes began to be affected by the complaint, and for about 



1 He one day represented his condition to me in words curiously resembling 

 those of Job: "When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my 

 complaint ; then Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifieat me through visions." 

 Job vii. 13, 14. 



