[And although he writes,] “I would give a good deal not to face a lot of people next week,"..."I have the feelings of a wounded wild beast and hate the sight of all but my best friends,” [he hid away his feelings, and made this the occasion for a very witty speech, of which, alas!  I remember nothing but a delightfully mixed polyglot exordium in French, German, and Italian, the result, he declared, of his recent excursion to foreign parts, which had obliterated the recollection of his native speech.

During his second absence he appointed his youngest daughter secretary to look after necessary correspondence, about which he forwarded instructions from time to time.

The chief matters of interest in the letters of this period are accounts of health and travel, sometimes serious, more often jesting, for the letters were generally written in the bright intervals between his dark days:  business of the Royal Society, and the publication of the new edition of the “Lessons in Elementary Physiology,” upon which he and Dr. Foster had been at work during the autumn.  But the four months abroad were not productive of very great good; the weather was unpropitious for an invalid—­] “as usual, a quite unusual season” [—­while his mind was oppressed by the reports of his daughter’s illness.  Under these circumstances recovery was slow and travel comfortless; all the Englishman’s love of home breaks out in his letter of April 8, when he set foot again on English soil.]

Hotel de Londres, Verona, November 18, 1884.

Dearest Babs,

1.  Why, indeed, do they ask for more?  Wait till they send a letter of explanation, and then say that I am out of the country and not expected back for several years.

2.  I wholly decline to send in any name to Athenaeum.  But don’t mention it.

3.  Society of Arts be bothered, also —.

4.  Write to Science and Art Club to engage three of the prettiest girls as partners for evening.  They will look very nice as wallflowers.

5.  Penny dinners? declined with thanks.

6.  Ask the meeting of Herts N.H.  Society to come here after next Thursday, when we shall be in Bologna.

Business first, my sweet girl secretary with the curly front; and now for private affairs, though as your mother is covering reams with them, I can only mention a few of the more important which she will forget.

The first is that she has a habit of hiding my shirts so that I am unable to find them when we go away, and the chambermaid comes rushing after us with the garment shamefully displayed.

The second is that she will cover all the room with her things, and I am obliged to establish a military frontier on the table.

The third is that she insists on my buying an Italian cloak.  So you will see your venerable pater equipped in this wise. [Sketch of a cloaked figure like a brigand of melodrama.] except in these two particulars, she behaves fairly well to me.