162 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



" We are in danger until we can get out of the proximity 

 " of the forest. Yonder is one prostrate across the road, 

 " which has fallen since we passed an hour ago : see how 

 "it has crushed the fence, and torn up the ground of 

 " the field on the opposite side ! There thunders 

 " another ! They are falling now on every side ; and 

 " the air is thronged with pieces of bark, shreds of 

 "tree-moss, and broken branches, descending. It is 

 " appalling to hear the shrieking of the gusts, and the 

 " groaning of the trees as they rock and chafe against 

 " each other, while they toss their naked arms about, as 

 " if in agony." 



The record of the next two years is a very slight one. 

 It was a period of obscurity and poverty, borne with an 

 almost stoic patience. Philip Gosse was still, what indeed 

 he never wholly ceased to be, timid, reserved, little disposed 

 to form new acquaintances or to cultivate old ones. The 

 success of his Canadian Naturalist made a ripple in 

 scientific society, and a more ambitious man would have 

 felt that his foot was on the ladder and have made his 

 own ascent secure. But that was not Philip Gosse's way. 

 He was not easily to be persuaded of his powers, and, 

 without making the smallest effort to secure work of a 

 serial or journalistic kind, such work as would have been 

 easily within reach of his elegant and active pen, he fell 

 back on his flower-drawing and his elementary teaching. 

 He was not, at this time, in good health. The miasma 

 of Alabama was probably still hanging about his system. 

 His rare letters of this epoch, though always resolute and 

 patient, have a melancholy tone. He says to his sister 

 Elizabeth, early in 1840, after a brief visit to Dorsetshire : 

 " Now I am in London again, lonely and depressed, and 

 almost without a friend — at least, without dear friends. 

 What a sad word is * farewell ' ! But, by-and-by, there 



