during
his stay, the Crown Princess being specially gracious to him.

Nor was he long in England on his return, though long enough to bring
another mention of the chest pain, and an excellent definition of
education--would there were no worse!--"Reading five pages of the
Greek Anthology every day, and looking out all the words I do not
know." In February 1886 he was back again investigating the Swiss and
Bavarian school systems; and that amiable animal-worship of his
receives a fresh evidence in the mention and mourning of the death of
"dear Lola" (not Montes, but another; in short, a pony), with a sigh
for "a _meche_ of her hair." The journey was finished by way of
France towards the end of March. At Hamburg Mr Arnold was "really [and
very creditably] glad to have had the opportunity of calling a man
Your Magnificence," that being, it seems, the proper official style in
addressing the burgomaster. And May took him back to America, to see
his married daughter and divers old friends. He remained there till
the beginning of September, improving, as he thought, in health, but
meeting towards the close an awkward bathing accident, which involved
no risk of drowning, but gave him a shock that was followed by a week
or two of troublesome attacks of pain across the chest. There is very
much in the letters of the time about the political crisis of 1886.
His retirement from official work came in November, and the letters
are fuller than ever of delight in the Cobham landscape.

But the warnings grew more frequent, and we know that long before this
he had had no delusions about their nature. Indeed, it is doubtful
whether he had ever had any, considering the fact of the malady, which
had, as he says in a singularly manly and dignified _commentatio
mortis_ dated January 29, 1887, struck down his father and
grandfather in middle life long before they came to his present age.
He "refuses every invitation to lecture or make addresses." The
letters of 1887, too, are very few, and contain little of interest,
except an indication of a visit to Fox How; while much the same may be
said of those, also few, from the early months of 1888. The last of
all contains a reference to _Robert Elsmere_. Five days later, on
April 15, a sudden exertion, it seems, brought on the fatal attack,
and he died. He had outlived his grand climacteric of sixty-three
(which he had thought would be "the end as well as the climax") by two
years and three months.