iS73 WITH HOOKER IN THE AUVERGNE 42 1 



the summer of 1873, which we spent in central France and 

 GermanJ'. He had been seriously ill, and was suffering from 

 severe mental depression. For this he was ordered abroad by 

 his physician. Sir A. Clark, to which step he offered a stubborn 

 resistance. With Mrs. Huxley's approval, and being myself 

 quite in the mood for a holiday, I volunteered to wrestle with 

 him, and succeeded, holding out as an inducement a visit to the 

 volcanic region of the Auvergne with Scrope's classical volume, 

 which we both knew and admired, as a guide book. 



We started on July 2nd, I loaded with injunctions from his 

 physician as to what his patient was to eat, drink, and avoid, 

 how much he was to sleep and rest, how little to talk and walk, 

 etc., that would have made the expedition a perpetual burthen 

 to me had I not believed that I knew enough of my friend's dis- 

 position and ailments to be convinced that not only health but 

 happiness would be our companions throughout. Sure enough, 

 for the first few days, including a short stay in Paris, his spirits 

 were low indeed, but this gave me the opportunity of appreciat- 

 ing his remarkable command over himself and his ever-present 

 consideration for his companion. Not a word or gesture of irri- 

 tation ever escaped him ; he exerted himself to obey the in- 

 structions laid down ; nay, more, he was instant in his endeavour 

 to save me trouble at hotels, railway stations, and ticket offices. 

 Still, some mental recreation was required to expedite recovery, 

 and he found it first by picking up at a bookstall, a History of 

 the Miracles of Lourdes, which were then exciting the religious 

 fervour of France, and the interest of her scientific public. He 

 entered with enthusiasm into the subject, getting together all 

 the treatises upon it, favourable or the reverse, that were acces- 

 sible, and I need hardly add, soon arrived at the conclusion, 

 that the so-called miracles were in part illusions and for the 

 rest delusions. As it may interest some of your readers to 

 know what his opinion was in this the early stage of the mani- 

 festations, I will give it as he gave it to me. It was a case of 

 two peasant children sent in the hottest month of the year into 

 a hot valley to collect sticks for firewood washed up by a stream, 

 when one of them after stooping down opposite a heat-rever- 

 berating rock, was, in rising, attacked with a transient vertigo, 

 under which she saw a figure in white against the rock. This bare 

 fact being reported to the cure of the village, all the rest followed. 



Soon after our arrival at Clermont Ferrand, your father had 

 so far recovered his wonted elasticity of spirits that he took 

 a keen interest in everything around, the museums, the cathedral. 



