CHAPTER XII 



ILLNESS— REMOVAL TO BRIGHTON— ' THE BREEZE ON 



BEACHY HEAD' 



In December, 1881, Jefferies fell ill of fistula, perhaps 

 tubercular in origin, and during the next twelve months 

 four times suffered the painful operation which is used to 

 cure this disease ; ' the pain,' he wrote, * was awful — 

 like lightning through the brain '* ; but he was not pros- 

 trate or unable to work for the whole of this time, since 

 in the middle of it he was on Exmoor. The wounds 

 were not all healed until January, 1883. Within a month 

 he began to feel a gnawing internal pain ; it was, he said, 

 like the gnawing of a rat at a beam, or the burning of 

 corrosive sublimate. He feared to travel by train lest 

 he should throw himself out. In March, 1884, he still 

 did not regard the illness as serious. In April, 1885, he 

 broke down. The pain was found to be due to ulceration, 

 perhaps also tubercular, of the small intestine. His 

 strength declined ; the wasting of his body was extreme. 

 He was starved and half delirious, and months of the 

 winter had been spent indoors. In June he could only 

 walk two hundred yards. In August it tore him to pieces, 

 he said, to walk a short distance. Suddenly, in Septem- 

 ber, 1885, he went down as if shot : his spine ' seemed to 

 suddenly snap 'f ; he could not sit or lie so as to use a pen 

 without distress ; for seven months he was helpless, and 

 in December was so weak that he could not dress himself. 

 South Africa and Algiers had been suggested to him for 



* To Mr. C. P. Scott. t Ibid. 



170 



