Yours faithfully,
R. S. Hawker.
The previous October he had written to me from his “sick-room, to which I have been confined with eczema for full two months.” In November he wrote: “Ten days in bed helpless.” I had been in correspondence with him about St. Morwenna not being identical with St. Modwenna; his answer was: “I have twice received supernatural intimation of her identity, by dream and suggestion.” Such an answer was clearly not that of a man of well-balanced mind.
16 Harley Road, Hampstead, March 10, 1874. My dear Mrs. M——,—You may well be astonished at my address; but our journey hither was a matter of life or death to both of us, and so far I am the only gainer. Dr. Goodfellow, after a rigid scrutiny, has pronounced me free from any perilous organic disease, and is of opinion that with rest and a few simple remedies, “there is work in me yet”....
Yours faithfully,
R. S. Hawker.
But the grand old man was breaking. There was pain of body, and much mental anxiety about his family. He could not sleep at night: his brain was constantly excited by his pecuniary troubles, and the sufferings he endured from his malady. By the advice of his doctor, I believe, it was that he had recourse to narcotics to allay the pain, and procure him rest at night. Mr. C. Hawker wrote to me:—
Towards the close of his life, my brother (I am grieved to state it) renewed a habit he had contracted on the death of his first wife, but had abandoned—of taking opium. This had a most injurious effect on his nerves: it violently excited him for a while, and then cast him into fits of the most profound depression. When under this influence he wrote and spoke in the wildest and most unreasonable manner, and said things which in moments of calmer judgment, I am sure, he bitterly deplored. He would at times work himself into the greatest excitement about the most trivial matters, over which he would laugh in his more serene moments.
Whilst Mr. Hawker was in London, he called one day on some very kind friends, who had a house in Bude, but were then in town. Mrs. M——, thinking that the old man would be troubled at being away from his books, very considerately offered to lend him any from her own library which he might take a fancy to read. But he said: “All I want is a reference Bible. If I have that I care for no other books.” And he carried off a Bagster’s Polyglot that lay on the table.
From London Mr. Hawker returned to Morwenstow, to fresh suffering, disappointment, and anxieties. I give a few of his last letters to one whom he regarded as his best friend.