[The following letter was in answer to a request which I was commissioned to forward him, that he would consent to serve on an honorary committee of the Societe des Professeurs de Francais en Angleterre.]

January 17, 1887.

I quite forgot to say anything about the Comite d’honneur, and as you justly remark in the present strained state of foreign politics the consequences may be serious.  Please tell your colleague that I shall be “proud an’ ’appy.”  You need not tell him that my pride and happiness are contingent on having nothing to do for the honour.

[In the meantime, the ups and downs of his health are reflected in various letters of these six months.  Much set up by his stay in the Isle of Wight, he writes from Shanklin on April 11 to Sir E. Frankland, describing the last meeting of the x Club, which the latter had not been able to attend, as he was staying in the Riviera:—­]

Hooker, Tyndall, and I alone turned up last Thursday.  Lubbock had gone to High Elms about used up by the House of Commons, and there was no sign of Hirst.

Tyndall seemed quite himself again.  In fact, we three old fogies voted unanimously that we were ready to pit ourselves against any three youngsters of the present generation in walking, climbing, or head-work, and give them odds.

I hope you are in the same comfortable frame of mind.

I had no notion that Mentone had suffered so seriously in the earthquake of 1887.  Moral for architects:  read your Bible and build your house upon the rock.

The sky and sea here may be fairly matched against Mentone or any other of your Mediterranean places.  Also the east wind, which has been blowing steadily for ten days, and is nearly as keen as the Tramontana.  Only in consequence of the long cold and drought not a leaf is out.

[Shanklin, indeed, suited him so well that he had half a mind to settle there.] “There are plenty of sites for building,” [he writes home in February,] “but I have not thought of commencing a house yet.” [However, he gave up the idea; Shanklin was too far from town.

But though he was well enough as long as he kept out of London, a return to his life there was not possible for any considerable time.  On May 19, just before a visit to Mr. F. Darwin at Cambridge, I find that he went down to St. Albans for a couple of days, to walk; and on the 27th he betook himself, terribly ill and broken down, to the Savernake Forest Hotel, in hopes of getting] “screwed up.” [This] “turned out a capital speculation, a charming spick-and-span little country hostelry with great trees in front.” [But the weather was persistently bad,] “the screws got looser rather than tighter,” [and again he was compelled to stay away from the x.

A week later, however, he writes:—­]

The weather has been detestable, and I got no good till yesterday, which was happily fine.  Ditto to-day, so I am picking up, and shall return to-morrow, as, like an idiot as I am, I promised to take the chair at a public meeting about a Free Library for Marylebone on Tuesday evening.