MEMOIR. xxxiii 



i 



without even an ordinary degree, which I knew 

 more than enough to have taken the Easter before, 

 if it would have satisfied me. I should have been 

 surprised to have been told that season, when I was 



riding H 's little cob in Rotten Row, in the glory 



of summer and all the hope of youth, that before the 

 leaves had all left the trees that very horse would 



have been H 's death, and that I should be a 



hundred times worse than dead." 1 



Throughout the whole of this weary time, however, 

 he never relinquished — so indomitable was his spirit 

 — the hope of a better time approaching. Once at 

 Liverpool, indeed, for a short stay in 1869, he writes 

 upon this subject, " I like to be where I can be 

 amused and see life without having to take part in 

 it, though I would fifty times rather be at work at 

 something. I wonder," he adds, "whether I ever 

 shall be again." And he was at work again, not 

 quite two years later, once more restored to health, 

 and busily preparing for a trip across the Atlantic, 

 which had been recommended to him for the 

 thorough re-establishment of his health, and which 

 accorded happily with the early fancies of his boy- 

 hood. It was by this time almost too late for him, 

 even had he now wished it, to have thought seriously 

 of adopting one of the recognized professions. A few 



1 His friend here referred to was killed by a fall from his horse 

 late that autumn. 



