officially," he wrote to his daughter from Liverpool on
the 14th of April, "that three thousand people were turned away from the
hall last night. . . . Except that I can _not_ sleep, I really think myself
in very much better training than I had anticipated. A dozen oysters and
a little champagne between the parts every night, seem to constitute the
best restorative I have ever yet tried." "Such a prodigious
demonstration last night at Manchester," he wrote to the same
correspondent twelve days later, "that I was obliged (contrary to my
principle in such cases) to go back. I am very tired to-day; for it
would be of itself very hard work in that immense place, if there were
not to be added eighty miles of railway and late hours to boot." "It has
been very heavy work," he wrote to his sister-in-law on the 11th of May
from Clifton, "getting up at 6.30 each morning after a heavy night, and
I am not at all well to-day. We had a tremendous hall at Birmingham last
night, L230 odd, 2100 people; and I made a most ridiculous mistake. Had
_Nickleby_ on my list to finish with, instead of _Trial_. Read
_Nickleby_ with great go, _and the people remained_. Went back again at
10 o'clock, and explained the accident: but said if they liked I would
give them the _Trial_. They _did_ like;--and I had another half hour of
it, in that enormous place. . . . I have so severe a pain in the ball of my
left eye that it makes it hard for me to do anything after 100 miles
shaking since breakfast. My cold is no better, nor my hand either." It
was his left eye, it will be noted, as it was his left foot and hand;
the irritability or faintness of heart was also of course on the left
side; and it was on the same left side he felt most of the effect of the
railway accident.

Everything was done to make easier the labour of travel, but nothing
could materially abate either the absolute physical exhaustion, or the
nervous strain. "We arrived here," he wrote from Aberdeen (16th of May),
"safe and sound between 3 and 4 this morning. There was a compartment
for the men, and a charming room for ourselves furnished with sofas and
easy chairs. We had also a pantry and washing-stand. This carriage is to
go about with us." Two days later he wrote from Glasgow: "We halted at
Perth yesterday, and got a lovely walk there. Until then I had been in a
condition the reverse of flourishing; half strangled with my cold, and
dyspeptically gloomy and dull; but, as I feel much m