hstanding all my troubles, to carry on without missing a lecture
to the last day of the Faculty of Arts, to which I belong." [1615]

How long was it to last? He himself began to wonder, for he had long
felt his life as if ebbing away. At length he became languid, weary, and
unfit for work; even the writing of a letter cost him a painful effort,
and. he felt "as if to lie down and sleep were the only things worth
doing." Yet shortly after, to help a Sunday-school, he wrote his 'Five
Gateways of Knowledge,' as a lecture, and afterwards expanded it into
a book. He also recovered strength sufficient to enable him to proceed
with his lectures to the institutions to which he belonged, besides on
various occasions undertaking to do other people's work. "I am looked
upon as good as mad," he wrote to his brother, "because, on a hasty
notice, I took a defaulting lecturer's place at the Philosophical
Institution, and discoursed on the Polarization of Light.... But I like
work: it is a family weakness."

Then followed chronic malaise--sleepless nights, days of pain, and
more spitting of blood. "My only painless moments," he says, "were when
lecturing." In this state of prostration and disease, the indefatigable
man undertook to write the 'Life of Edward Forbes'; and he did it, like
everything he undertook, with admirable ability. He proceeded with
his lectures as usual. To an association of teachers he delivered a
discourse on the educational value of industrial science. After he
had spoken to his audience for an hour, he left them to say whether
he should go on or not, and they cheered him on to another half-hour's
address. "It is curious," he wrote, "the feeling of having an audience,
like clay in your hands, to mould for a season as you please. It is a
terribly responsible power.... I do not mean for a moment to imply that
I am indifferent to the good opinion of others--far otherwise; but to
gain this is much less a concern with me than to deserve it. It was
not so once. I had no wish for unmerited praise, but I was too ready to
settle that I did merit it. Now, the word DUTY seems to me the biggest
word in the world, and is uppermost in all my serious doings."

This was written only about four months before his death. A little later
he wrote, "I spin my thread of life from week to week, rather than from
year to year." Constant attacks of bleeding from the lungs sapped his
little remaining strength, but did not altogether disabl