1843-44. ABLE TO WALK ALONE. 315 



" James is, on the whole, as well as any such sufferer can be, 

 growing daily weaker, and wasting manifestly before our eyes, 

 but free from acute pain, and not much distressed with sickness. 

 Now and then, at long intervals, I have a cheering conversation 

 on the world to come with him, and we talk of many matters 

 quietly together. But often for days we remain beside each 

 other, saying very little about any matter. 



" I can now walk the streets alone, trusting to my stick only 

 for support. This is a great deal, like a new life to me. Crocuses 

 and snow-drops and hepaticas are growing old, and tulips and 

 hyacinths flinging forth their flowers. It would sadden you to 

 hear James dwell on the loveliness of green parks filled with 

 violets and buttercups and spring flowers, as on things which he 

 will never see. Where he is going he will see ' better things 

 than these/ and these may not be wanting also. Nothing 

 strikes me more in the Bible than the exulting calmness with 

 which the sacred writers permit us to imagine our utmost as 

 to the glories of heaven, and then add, ' Eye hath not seen, nor 

 ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things 

 which God hath prepared for them that love him.' 



" I write in the laboratory at a moment hastily snatched from 

 other duties. Excuse scrawling, and believe me your affectionate 



" GEORGE." 



After speaking of his baflied hopes in connexion witli the ex- 

 periments alluded to, which amounted in number, at the lowest 

 estimate, to two hundred, he writes to Dr. Cairns on March 1st : 

 " But what are all these things, and any amount of intellec- 

 tual disappointment and grief . . . compared with the sorrow of 

 seeing my poor cousin hopelessly, fatally ill ? He is dying before 

 our eyes, and the doctors hold out no hope of amendment. 

 Tubercular disease, phthisis (or to use the plainest word), con- 

 sumption, has set its fatal seal upon him. It has not yet gone 

 far, but you know that in that disease the beginning is the end. 

 James knows he is dying. In a house full of invalids like ours, 

 with the shadow of the grave always over it, great plainness of 

 speech can be used on such a matter. He is weak in body, but 

 little changed mentally. He speaks and reads very little, 



