1852 CONTEMPLATED ABANDONMENT OF SCIENCE 117 



Prof. Forbes will move heaven and earth for me if he 

 can ; Gray, Bell, and all the leading men are, I know, 

 similarly inclined. Fate says wait, and you shall reach 

 the goal which from a child you have set before your- 

 self. On the other hand, a small voice like conscience 

 speaks of one who is wasting youth and life away for 

 your sake. 



Other friends, who, while recognising his general 

 capacities, were not scientific, and had no direct 

 appreciation of his superlative powers in science, 

 thought he was following a course which would never 

 allow him to marry, and urged him to give up this un- 

 equal battle with fate, and emigrate to Australia. Of 

 this he writes on August 5, 1852, to Miss Heathorn : 



I must make up my mind to it if nothing turns up. 

 However, I look upon such a life as would await me in 

 Australia with great misgiving. A life spent in a routine 

 employment, with no excitement and no occupation for 

 the higher powers of the intellect, with its great aspira- 

 tions stifled and all the great problems of existence set 

 hopelessly in the background, offers to me a prospect 

 that would be utterly intolerable but for your love. . . . 

 Sometimes I am half mad with the notion of burying all 

 my powers in a mere struggle for a livelihood. Some- 

 times I am equally wild at thinking of the long weary 

 while that has passed since we met. There are times 

 when I cannot bear to think of leaving my present 

 pursuits, when I feel I should be guilty of a piece of 

 cowardly desertion from my duty in doing it, and there 

 come intervals when I would give truth and science and 

 all hopes to be folded in your arms. ... I know which 

 course is right, but I never know which I may follow ; 

 help me . . . for there is only one course in which 

 there is either hope or peace for me. 



