He next describes the mode in which he suffered through the action of others:—
“The disturbances from which I most frequently suffer are noises, especially when unexpected; as, for instance, the sudden opening or closing of a door, the dropping of any article on the floor. . . . Some protection is afforded me by increasing deafness, whatever the inconvenience of such infirmity. Again, I am painfully sensible to a shake so slight as to be imperceptible to one in ordinary health; such, for instance, as is produced by any one walking across the room save with an almost cat-like tread, or by a touch to my chair so slight as even the mere brush of the servant’s clothes against it as he waits at table. Further, I am annoyed by any of those repeated movements of hands or fingers which are habitual to some people, though against this particular annoyance I find some protection in taking a book or newspaper and interposing it as a screen.”
I may mention here, as an instance of his delicate consideration for the feelings of others, that I had often noticed when I went to see him how he thus screened his eyes. It was not till I read this account of his health that I was in the least aware that it was against my restlessness that he was screening himself.
Beneath the balcony that he had built for himself, wherein he hoped, each year as the suns grew warm, to breathe the fresh air, the Metropolitan Asylums Board set up a Small-Pox Hospital. Within a few yards of the old man’s only walk ran the road along which, day after day for many a month, passed a sad train of ambulances and a still sadder train of hearses. For the signal benefit that he had conferred not only on England, but on the whole world, he had been hitherto rewarded and honoured by a gratitude that was as strong as it was general, by the free gifts of his countrymen and the vote of Parliament. The University of Oxford had made him a Doctor of Laws, and the Queen had made him a Knight Commander of the Bath. Before many years had passed the City of London was to give him its freedom, and Westminster Abbey a grave. The Asylums Board cared for none of those things. Public benefactors and public honours did not enter into its world. It knew of nothing but ratepayers. But ratepayers, it should have remembered, are after all only men, and men, in these islands at least, are neither ungrateful nor pitiless.
There was a striking regularity in the order of his household. Everything went on almost as if by clockwork. He asked me one day whether I had ever noticed that the sound of a bell was scarcely ever heard in his house, save when someone came to the hall-door. He was, he said, strictly punctual himself, and he had trained his servants to habits of the strictest punctuality. He could afford, I knew, to take some trouble with them, for they were very slow to leave his service. His visitors saw year after year the best proof of a good master in the familiar faces of those by whom he was served. As everything was done at its appointed time, there was no need for a bell to be rung. His meals, his medicine, everything was brought to the exact minute. No one was summoned, for no one was ever late. In the days when he was still strong enough to drive out, he had been often troubled by the unpunctuality of his coachman:—
“I advised him to aim at being five minutes before the appointed time. Of course I only advised this—to have ordered it would merely have changed the appointed hour. Just as the allowance of five minutes’ grace at the Post Office simply alters the hour of attendance from 10.0 to 10.5 a.m., and does nothing to secure punctuality.
“Still the result was unsatisfactory, and I was irritated and annoyed by the man’s persistence. He was honest and sober, and had a wife and several children. Dismissal, therefore, was out of the question. I thought of fines, with rewards for continued punctuality; but I have small faith in either fines or rewards.
“At last it occurred to me to adopt the Post Office rule, under which any one accused of misconduct is called upon to give such written explanation ‘as he may desire.’
“The duty was entrusted to the footman, with instructions to call for explanation in every instance of lateness, even when no more than a fraction of a minute, the hall clock being taken as an indisputable standard.”