s due from him in Preston on the
22nd of that month. But on Sunday the 18th we had ill report of him from
Chester, and on the 21st he wrote from Blackpool to his sister-in-law.
"I have come to this Sea-Beach Hotel (charming) for a day's rest. I am
much better than I was on Sunday; but shall want careful looking to, to
get through the readings. My weakness and deadness are all on the left
side; and if I don't look at anything I try to touch with my left hand,
I don't know where it is. I am in (secret) consultation with Frank
Beard, who says that I have given him indisputable evidences of overwork
which he could wish to treat immediately; and so I have telegraphed for
him. I have had a delicious walk by the sea to-day, and I sleep soundly,
and have picked up amazingly in appetite. My foot is greatly better too,
and I wear my own boot." Next day was appointed for the reading at
Preston; and from that place he wrote to me, while waiting the arrival
of Mr. Beard. "Don't say anything about it, but the tremendously severe
nature of this work is a little shaking me. At Chester last Sunday I
found myself extremely giddy, and extremely uncertain of my sense of
touch, both in the left leg and the left hand and arms. I had been
taking some slight medicine of Beard's; and immediately wrote to him
describing exactly what I felt, and asking him whether those feelings
_could be_ referable to the medicine? He promptly replied: 'There can be
no mistaking them from your exact account. The medicine cannot possibly
have caused them. I recognise indisputable symptoms of overwork, and I
wish to take you in hand without any loss of time.' They have greatly
modified since, but he is coming down here this afternoon. To-morrow
night at Warrington I shall have but 25 more nights to work through. If
he can coach me up for them, I do not doubt that I shall get all right
again--as I did when I became free in America. The foot has given me
very little trouble. Yet it is remarkable that it is _the left foot
too_; and that I told Henry Thompson (before I saw his old master Syme)
that I had an inward conviction that whatever it was, it was not gout. I
also told Beard, a year after the Staplehurst accident, that I was
certain that my heart had been fluttered, and wanted a little helping.
This the stethoscope confirmed; and considering the immense exertion I
am undergoing, and the constant jarring of express trains, the case
seems to me quite intelligible. D