1893 LETTEES ON HIS ILLNESS 315 



sure than I had hoped. I have Httle doubt that it will 

 eventually prevail; but more time will probably be 

 needed before it does. 



Tours very sincerely, 



Gr. J. EOMANES. 

 Oxford : September 18, 1893. 



Dear Dyer, — I am not a little touched by the 

 kind sympathy expressed in your letter of the 16th. 

 TSTien one is descending into the dark valley, scien- 

 tific squabbles seem to fade away in those elementary 

 principles of good will which bind mankind together. 

 And I am glad to think that in all the large circle of 

 my friends and correspondents there is no vestige of 



ill wiU in any quarter, unless it be mth and 



, who both seem to me half-crazy in their 



enmity, and therefore not of much count. 



As for ' fortitude,' sooner or later the night must 

 come for all of us ; and if my dayUght is being sud- 

 denly eclipsed, there is only the more need to work 

 while it lasts. But, to tell the truth, I do not on this 

 account feel less keenly the pity of it. With five 

 boys — the eldest not yet in his teens and the youngest 

 still in his weeks ; with piles of note-books which 

 nobody else can utilise, and heaps of experimental 

 researches in project which nobody else is likely to 

 undertake, I do bitterly feel that my lot is a hard one. 



Looking aU the facts in the face, I do not expect 

 ever to see another birthday,^ and therefore, like Job, 

 am disposed to curse my first one. For I know that 

 all my best work was to have been published in the 



1 He did see one more. 



