During part of the time covered by the present chapter, my father suffered perhaps more from ill-health than at any other time of his life. He felt severely the depressing influence of these long years of illness; thus as early as 1840 he wrote to Fox: "I am grown a dull, old, spiritless dog to what I used to be. One gets stupider as one grows older I think." It is not wonderful that he should so have written, it is rather to be wondered at that his spirit withstood so great and constant a strain. He wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker in 1845: "You are very kind in your enquiries about my health; I have nothing to say about it, being always much the same, some days better and some worse. I believe I have not had one whole day, or rather night, without my stomach having been greatly disordered, during the last three years, and most days great prostration of strength: thank you for your kindness; many of my friends, I believe, think me a hypochondriac."
Again, in 1849, he notes in his diary:—"January 1st to March 10th.—Health very bad, with much sickness and failure of power. Worked on all well days." This was written just before his first visit to Dr. Gully's Water-Cure Establishment at Malvern. In April of the same year he wrote:—"I believe I am going on very well, but I am rather weary of my present inactive life, and the water-cure has the most extraordinary effect in producing indolence and stagnation of mind: till experiencing it, I could not have believed it possible. I now increase in weight, have escaped sickness for thirty days." He returned in June, after sixteen weeks' absence, much improved in health, and, as already described, continued the water-cure at home for some time.]