LITERARY WORK IN LONDON: 227 



In November much reading of Jamaica notes caused a 

 revival of intense desire to revisit the West Indies, resulting 

 rather suddenly in a positive design to visit the Virgin 

 Islands and Tortugas. But once more the scheme came to 

 nothing, Mrs. Gosse's health precluding the possibility of 

 her sharing so painful a romantic enterprise. Philip Gosse 

 was one of those people who find it exceedingly difficult to 

 speak of what lies closest to their hearts, and he sometimes 

 preferred to convey his intentions in writing, even to those 

 who were around him. I find a letter addressed on this 

 occasion by my father to my mother, announcing to her 

 his final determination not to start for the West Indies ; 

 this letter being, apparently, handed to her in the house. 

 In it he begs her not to refer to the subject in conversation, 

 nor to make the slightest effort to change his plans. The 

 letter is worded in terms of the most devoted affection, and 

 that he wrote it at all is a proof of the almost impassioned 

 lons^ing: which had seized him to revisit those luminous 

 archipelagos. If Mrs. Gosse had been strong enough to 

 bear the journey, she could not have left her mother, who 

 was dying, and who passed away on January 14, 1851. 

 Mr. Bowes had preceded his wife by six months ; he died, 

 in his eightieth year, on June 10, 1850. 



The year 1851 was notable for the publication of no 

 fewer than four of Philip Gosse's works. In the month of 

 March his Text-Book of Zoology for Schools and his 

 Sacred Streams, the Ancient and Modern History of the 

 Rivers of the Bible, were issued. In February he began 

 Fishes, the fourth volume of his series of manuals of 

 zoology for the S.P.C.K., and this was published in 

 October of the same year. Moreover, on October 17, 

 appeared A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica, a production 

 of far greater importance than any of these, a handsome 

 volume adorned with lithographic plates designed and 



