I know that he is appreciated already, but not yet understood. His nobility of nature and chivalry belonged to the Knights of the Middle Ages. His science, erudition, and broad views belong to sixty years hence; his misfortune was not belonging to his Time, and hence the many failures during his life.
[1] This was a little bit of "chaff," because he was so afraid of saying too much about himself, that he often made it heavy with knowledge and science, and suppressed what was interesting as to his own share in the matter quoted.—I. B.
[CHAPTER XI.]
DECLINE IN OUR WELL-BEING.
END OF 1883.
A change now came over our circumstances for the worse, and here we begin the last seven years of his life, three and a half years of long gout sicknesses, on and off, without any suspicion of danger, though much suffering, and three and a half years after that, when every moment was a fear. He began now to notice in his journals when he heard the first nightingale, when the first cuckoo note in spring, and for some time past he had noticed the first swallow, and the first flight of swallows, and then their departure, with increasing sadness. For these twenty-two years of our married life I had made, as I said, our morning tea at any time from three o'clock in the morning up to half-past five, and if I came home late from any party, I found it was not worth while to go to bed; but now he began to have it at six and 6.30. On the 16th Miss Bishop had to go.
We went up very much to Opçina, where Richard got better and could walk. Mrs. Learmouth and family came to Trieste for a while, and then Mr. Steigand came to stay with us, and our old friend and Governor, Baron Pino.