His final speech was made at Hackney on 13th October; he lectured with weakened voice on the 30th, went to London, and returned to Cambridge, where, though he found the weather damp and raw, he enjoyed a ride with some relatives. In the evening he compared his cold with that of a friend who was dining with them, and was forced to admit that the friend’s cold was superior to his own. The next day, though he did Post Office work with his secretary, he kept his bed; his lecture for Monday had to be put off. On Tuesday and Wednesday he grew worse, though he greatly enjoyed Mrs. Fawcett’s reading of Dickens, laughing heartily over it. It was now necessary to ask Lord Eversley, so often his able substitute, to act again as his deputy. CHAPTER XXXI LIGHT The Passing—The People grieve—Sorrow in Parliament—The Nation’s Loss—Letters from Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales (the late King Edward) and Gladstone—The Railroad Men’s Tribute—The Significance of his Life—India’s Loss—Fawcett’s Message. [Sidenote: Between the Lights.] On Thursday morning, 6th November 1884, the two doctors who saw him found that his heart was weak, and he asked his secretary to notify the papers of his illness. Another doctor came from London, and when the three went to Fawcett’s room, they found that there was no hope of his recovery. Thoughtful as always of the comfort of others, he asked in a failing voice if dinner had been arranged for the doctor who had just come. When his hands began to grow cold, he thought the weather had changed. Practical and exact to the last, he said: ‘The best things to warm my hands with would be my fur gloves. They are in the pocket of my coat in the dressing-room.’ He never spoke again. In the quiet room, the dull autumn afternoon darkened as his wife and daughter sat by the bedside. Very gently, his brave fight won, the tired blind man’s unquenchable spirit left them in the twilight and passed to find the light. * * * * * [Sidenote: Remembered and Loved.] Rarely has a loss caused so much deep personal sorrow in every class. A dearly loved friend of many had gone, a noble life had been spent for others. There was mourning in many a little cottage when the head of the family read aloud that the good Postmaster-General had passed away. In the misty lamplit village squares, and in the market-place at Salisbury, the rural labourers gathered to lament his loss, and to recall his many good deeds and the countless little friendlinesses which he had personally shown to so many of them. ‘That such a man should have died at only fifty-one is one of those apparent wastes in Nature before which our philosophy stands impotent; but that such a light should have existed at all makes philosophy superfluous in contemplating it.’[3]