i873 IMPROVEMENT IN HEALTH 



435 



high scientific merits, and his symptoms are such as cause very 

 grave anxiety. I shall be happily disappointed if that accursed 

 consumption has not got hold of him. 



The college authorities have behaved as well as they possibly 

 could to him, and I do not suppose that his enforced retirement 

 for a while gives him the least pecuniary anxiety as his people 

 are all well off, and he himself has an income apart from his 

 college pay. Nevertheless, under such circumstances, a man 

 with half a dozen children always wants all the money he can 

 lay hands on ; and whether he does or no, he ought not to be 

 allowed to deprive himself of any, which leads me to the gist of 

 my letter. His name was on your list as one of those hearty 

 friends who came to my rescue last year, and it was the only 

 name which made me a little uneasy, for I doubted whether it 

 was right for a man with his responsibilities to make sacrifices 

 of this sort. However, I stifled that feeling, not seeing what 

 else I could do without wounding him. But now my conscience 

 won't let me be, and I do not think that any consideration ought 

 to deter me from getting his contribution back to him somehow 

 or other. There is no one to whose judgment on a point of 

 honour I would defer more readily than yours, and I am quite 

 sure you will agree with me. I really am quite unhappy and 

 ashamed to think of myself as vigorous and well at the expense 

 of his denying himself any rich man's caprice he might take a 

 fancy to. 



So, my dear, good friend, let me know what his contribution 

 was, that I may get it back to him somehow or other, even if I 

 go like Nicodemus privily and by night to his bankers. — Ever 

 yours faithfully, T. H. H. 



