I am very sorry to hear that you have been so seriously ill. You will have to take to my way of living—a mutton chop a day and no grog, but much baccy. Don't begin to pick up your threads too fast.
No wonder you are uneasy if you have crabs on your conscience. [I.e. an article for the "Encyclopaedia Britannica.">[ Thank Heaven they are not on mine!
I am glad to hear you are getting better, and I sincerely trust that you may find all the good you seek in the baths.
As to coming back a "new man," who knows what that might be? Let us rather hope for the old man in a state of complete repair—A1 copper bottomed.
Excuse my nautical language.
[The following letters also touch on his Edinburgh lectures:—]
Cragside, Morpeth, August 11, 1875.
My dear Foster,
We are staying here with Sir W. Armstrong—the whole brood—Miss Matthaei and the majority of the chickens being camped at a farm-house belonging to our host about three miles off. It is wetter than it need be, otherwise we are very jolly.
I finished off my work in Edinburgh on the 23rd and positively polished off the Animal Kingdom in 54 lectures. French without a master in twelve lessons is nothing to this feat. The men worked very well on the whole, and sent in some creditable examination papers. I stayed a few days to finish up the abstracts of my lectures for the "Medical Times"; then picked up the two elder girls who were at Barmoor and brought them on here to join the wife and the rest.