HOLIDAYS. 131 



visits to water-cure establishments. In 1849, when very ill, 

 suffering from constant sickness, he was urged by a friend 

 to try the water-cure, and at last agreed to go to Dr. Gully's 

 establishment at Malvern. His letters to Mr. Fox show how 

 much good the treatment did him ; he seems to have thought 

 that he had found a cure for his troubles, but, like all other 

 remedies, it had only a transient effect on him. However, he 

 found it, at first, so good for him, that when he came home 

 he built himself a douche-bath, and the butler learnt to be 

 his bathman. 



He paid many visits to Moor Park, Dr. Lane's water-cure 

 establishment in Surrey, not far from Aldershot. These 

 visits were pleasant ones, and he always looked back to them 

 with pleasure. Dr. Lane has given his recollections of my 

 father in Dr. Richardson's ' Lecture on Charles Darwin/ 

 October 22, 1882, from which I quote: 



" In a public institution like mine, he was surrounded, of 

 course, by multifarious types of character, by persons of both 

 sexes, mostly very different from himself commonplace 

 people, in short, as the majority are everywhere, but like to 

 him at least in this, that they were fellow-creatures and 

 fellow-patients. And never was any one more genial, more 

 considerate, more friendly, more altogether charming than he 

 universally was." .... He " never aimed, as too often happens 

 with good talkers, at monopolising the conversation. It was 

 his pleasure rather to give and take, and he was as good 

 a listener as a speaker. He never preached nor prosed, but 

 his talk, whether grave or gay (and it was each by turns), was 

 full of life and salt racy, bright, and animated.' 



Some idea of his relation to his family and his friends may 

 be gathered from what has gone before ; it would be impos- 

 sible to attempt a complete account of these relationships, 

 but a slightly fuller outline may not be out of place. Of his 



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