Sir Charles adds: 'It was, however, Gambetta, I think, that saved me.'
In the course of the month (November, 1874) he wrote to his constituents in reply to a resolution sent by them, but could not promise to take his seat during the following session, and said that in any event he should have for a long time to transact business only by letter. 'From this time forward I got rapidly better as far as nervousness at meeting people went, although for many months I was completely changed and out of my proper self.' [Footnote: He, however, began to attend Parliament in the early part of the session of 1875.]
He sought escape in travel, starting suddenly in December for Algeria by way of Oran, and pushing through the desert as far as Laghouat and the Mzab.
CHAPTER XIII
RENEWAL OF ACTIVITY
I.
On his return from Algeria Sir Charles reached Paris and crossed to
England in the last week of January, 1875.
'On reaching London, instead of going to Harcourt's, I had to go first to my own house, for I was sickening with disease, and had, indeed, a curious very slight attack of smallpox, which passed off, however, in about two days, but I had to be isolated for another week. When I became what the doctors called well I moved to Harcourt's; but my hand still shook, and I had contracted a bad habit of counting the beating of my heart, and I was so weak of mind that the slightest act of kindness made me cry. To my grandmother and brother I wrote to ask them to let me go on living with Harcourt for the present, not because I preferred him to them, but because I could not live in my own house, and should have a better chance of sleep if I returned elsewhere at night from the House of Commons.'
From this prostration he slowly recovered, occupying himself partly in arranging for the publication by Murray of Papers of a Critic, which he describes as 'a reprint of some of my grandfather's articles, with a memoir of him by myself which I had written while in Paris.'
The book was well received, and a copy sent to Mr. Disraeli brought this acknowledgment: