April 4.
We toil at the Commission every day, and don't make any rapid progress. An awful fear creeps over me that we shall not finish this bout.
[While he was in Edinburgh for the third time, his attention was called to an article in the "Echo," the organ of the anti-vivisection party. He writes:—]
The "Echo" is pretty. It is one of a long series of articles from the same hand, but I don't think they hurt anybody and they evidently please the writer. For some reason or other they have not attacked me yet, but I suppose my turn will come.
[Again:—]
Thank you for sending me John Bright's speeches. They are very good, but hardly up to his old mark of eloquence. Some parts are very touching.
[His health was improving, as he notes with satisfaction:—]
Every day this week we have had about four hours of the Commission, and I have dined out four days out of the six. But I'm no the waur, and the late dinners have not been visited by fits of morning blue devils. So I am in hopes that I am getting back to the normal state that Clark prophesied for me.
4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., April 29, 1877.
My dear Skelton,