One of the last thoughts in his note-book, written at Ravenna, shows his mind:
‘Our real knowledge is but to be sure that we know nothing, and I can but doubt if this be a curse or blessing. Those who hope, trust, and believe are surely happier far than those who doubt; and the submissive child, who of his father’s goodness is secure, is far more blessed than the froward one, who sets himself against his powerful will, which, after all his struggles and vain efforts, he must at last obey, rebelling against the love which would have made him happy. Is not this the history of man?—of that bright and beauteous garden where in innocence and ignorance he lived and loved till the false taste of knowledge made him wretched and he knew that he must die. And is not this the glory and the consummation of the Christian faith, which gives him back his innocence, his hopes, his confidence in God, which through his life still gilds the future with a golden blessing of an expected immortality? Man fell in Adam; knowledge was his bane; man rose in Christ, recovering his ignorance or substituting hope for what was doubt.’
Four or five days before he left Ravenna he wrote, April 6, ‘Did not shoot, but returned thanks to the Great Cause of all being for all His mercies to me, an undeserving and often ungrateful creature, but now most grateful. May I become better and more grateful and more humble-minded every day!’
‘Valde miserabilis’ is not an unfrequent expression at this time, commonly accompanied with mention of diminished power of limbs and general feebleness, with pain and numbness. Sometimes he was in despair of recovery and resigned to his fate, at other times indulging in hope, thankful for feeling better, and expressing thanks (and he does it very often) by the use of letters; as G. G. D. (Thanks and glory to God); O. O. O.; or more fully thus, G. O. O. O. D.
On July 1 he wrote to his friend Mr. Davies Gilbert, who was on the council of the Royal Society. He says that the expectations of his complete and rapid recovery have not been realised.
Under these circumstances I feel it would be highly imprudent, and perhaps fatal, for me to return and to attempt to perform the official duties of President of the Royal Society; and as I had no other feeling for that high and honourable situation except the hope of being useful to the society, so I would not keep it a moment without the security of being able to devote myself to the labour and attention it demands. I beg, therefore, you will be so good as to communicate my resignation to the council and to the Society at their first meeting in November, stating the circumstances of my severe and long-continued illness as the cause. At the same time I beg you will express to them how grateful I feel for the high honour they have done me in placing me in the chair for so many successive years. Assure them that I shall always take the same interest in the progress of the grand objects of the Society, and throughout the whole of my life endeavour to contribute to their advancement and to the prosperity of the body.
He continued his notes thus:
‘September 2.—I took my exercise well with less fatigue, and certainly feel better. Offered up my thanksgiving to the O. O. O. with tears of gratitude and feelings of intense adoration,