1849.] HIS FATHER'S DEATH. 373 



travel, which added to my misery. Indeed, all this winter I 

 have been bad enough . . . and my nervous system began 

 to be affected, so that my hands trembled, and head was 

 often swimming. I was not able to do anything one day out 

 of three, and was altogether too dispirited to write to you, 

 or to do anything but what I was compelled. I thought I 

 was rapidly going the way of all flesh. Having heard, acci- 

 dentally, of two persons who had received much benefit from 

 the water-cure, I got Dr. Gully's book, and made further 

 enquiries, and at last started here, with wife, children, and 

 all our servants. We have taken a house for two months, 

 and have been here a fortnight. I am already a little 

 stronger . . . Dr. Gully feels pretty sure he can do me good, 



which most certainly the regular doctors could not 



I feel certain that the water-cure is no quackery. 



How I shall enjoy getting back to Down with renovated 

 health, if such is to be my good fortune, and resuming the 

 beloved Barnacles. Now I hope that you will forgive me for 

 my negligence in not having sooner answered your letter. I 

 was uncommonly interested by the sketch you give of your 

 intended grand expedition, from which I suppose you will 

 soon be returning. How earnestly I hope that it may prove 

 in every way successful. . . . 



[When my father was at the Water-cure Establishment at 

 Malvern he was brought into contact with clairvoyance, of 

 which he writes in the following extract from a letter to Fox. 

 September, 1850. 



" You speak about Homoeopathy, which is a subject which 

 makes me more wrath, even than does Clairvoyance. Clair- 

 voyance so transcends belief, that one's ordinary faculties are 

 put out of the question, but in homceopathy common sense 

 and common observation come into play, and both these must 

 go to the dogs, if the infinitesimal doses have any effect what- 

 ever. How true is a remark I saw the other day by Quetelet, 



2 C 2 



