‘September 27, St. Goar.—A very beautiful and glorious evening. I thought I was going to be quite well, as the weakness of the left wrist, which put an end to my shooting at Spiers, is quite gone; but I found my stiff leg as bad as ever. Yet I can hardly be lower or live lower. Dubito fortissime restaurationem meam.
‘As I have so often alluded to the possibility of my dying suddenly, I think it right to mention that I am too intense a believer in the Supreme Intelligence, and have too strong a faith in the optimism of the system of the universe, ever to accelerate my dissolution. The laurel-water and laudanum and opium that are in my dressing-case are medicines. I have been and am taking a care of my health which I fear it is not worth, but which, hoping it may please Providence to preserve me for wise purposes, I think my duty. G. O. O. O.’
He arrived in London on October 6. Not finding his health improve, on March 29, 1828, he left England again. Before he went he sent a paper on Volcanoes to the Royal Society.
In his ‘Consolations in Travel’ he says, ‘I was desirous of again passing some time in Southern Austria and Italy, in the hope of re-establishing a broken constitution, and though this hope was a feeble one, yet at least I expected to spend a few of the last days of life more tranquilly and more agreeably than in the metropolis of my own country. Nature never deceives us. The rocks, the mountains, the streams, always speak the same language. A shower of snow may hide the verdant woods in spring, a thunder-storm may render the blue, limpid streams foul and turbulent; but these effects are rare and transient; in a few hours, or at least days, all the sources of beauty are renovated; and Nature affords no continued trains of misfortunes and miseries, such as depend upon the constitution of humanity, no hopes for ever blighted in the bud, no beings full of life, beauty, and promise taken from us in the prime of youth. Her fruits are all balmy, bright, and sweet; she affords none of those blighted ones so common in the life of man and so like the fabled apples of the Dead Sea, fresh and beautiful to the sight, but when tasted full of bitterness and ashes.’
On May 22 he writes, ‘To my old haunt, Wurzen, which is sublime in the majesty of Alpine grandeur. The snowy peaks of the Noric Alps rising above thunder-clouds, whilst spring in all its bloom and beauty blooms below, its buds and blossoms adorning the face of nature under a frowning canopy of dark clouds, like some Judith beauty of Italy—a Transteverene brow and eye and a mouth of Venus and the Graces.’
On June 3 he wrote to his brother, Dr. Davy:
Aussee, in Styria.
Notwithstanding the long, severe, and depressing malady under which I still labour I am not entirely without hope of ultimate recovery, and the few pleasures which I retain in this my state of earthly purgatory have principally reference to the enjoyments and prospects of my friends; and I indulge in the idea that you are well and happy and enjoying a life which I can say I only support, supposing that it pleases Omniscience to preserve me for some ends which I cannot understand, but which I trust belong to the great plan of goodness and mercy belonging to the Divine mind.
It suits me better to write away my days in this solitary state of existence in the contemplation of nature than to attempt to enter into London society, where recollections call up the idea of what I was, and the want of bodily power teaches me what a shadow I am. I make notes in natural history, fish, and prepare for another edition of my ‘Salmonia;’ ride amongst the lakes and mountains; and attach the loose fringe of hope as much as possible to my tattered garments. I am now going to Ischel, where there are warm salt baths, to try if they will renovate the muscular power of my leg and arm.
I wish to go to Trieste in October, to make the experiments I have long projected on the torpedo. God bless you, my dear John!
Your affectionate Friend and Brother,
H. Davy.
On June 24 he says:
I have used the baths. I have nearly recovered the flexibility of the affected limbs, but not their former strength, and this I can hardly hope to do as long as I am obliged to live so low and to use so much medicine; but I shall go on. Speranza!
In November he sent his last paper to the Royal Society. It was on the Torpedo.