[But as is the way with influenza, it was thrown off in the summer only to return the next winter, and on the eve of the Royal Society Anniversary Dinner he writes to Sir M. Foster:—]
I am in rather a shaky and voiceless condition, and unless I am more up to the mark to-morrow morning I shall have to forgo the dinner, and, what is worse, the chat with you afterwards.
[One consequence of the spring attack of influenza was that this year he went once more to the Maloja, staying there from July 21 to August 25.]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, July 9, 1893.
My dear Hooker,
What has happened to the x meeting you proposed? However, it does not matter much to me now, as Hames, who gave me a thorough overhauling in London, has packed me off to the Maloja again, and we start, if we can, on the 17th.
It is a great nuisance, but the dregs of influenza and the hot weather between them have brought the weakness of my heart to the front, and I am gravitating to the condition in which I was five or six years ago. So I must try the remedy which was so effectual last time.
We are neither of us very fit, and shall have to be taken charge of by a courier. Fancy coming to that!
Let me be a warning to you, my dear old man. Don't go giving lectures at Oxford and making speeches at Cambridge, and above all things don't, oh don't go getting influenza, the microbes of which would be seen under a strong enough microscope to have this form.
[Sketch of an active little black demon.]