It was in allusion to this illness at the time of the visit of Mr. O'Brien that Parnell said in his speech at the Eighty Club (May 8, 1888): "I was ill, dangerously ill; it was an illness from which I have not entirely recovered up to this day. I was so ill that I could not put pen to paper, or even read the newspaper. I knew nothing about the movement until weeks after it had started, and even then I was so feeble that for several months--absolutely up to the meeting of Parliament--I was positively unable to take part in any public matter, and was scarcely able to do so for months afterwards. But, if I had been in a position to advise, I candidly submit to you that I should have advised against it." Mr. O'Brien called again to see Parnell during the time he was so ill, and he left his room for the first time to go down to the sitting-room to see him. They had a long talk over the Plan of Campaign and other matters, and the interview left Parnell so exhausted that he was very ill again for some days afterwards. Long after he told me, "All I got for getting up to see O'Brien was that he went about telling people that I was insane." Mr. Parnell had been feeling low and depressed all through the summer of this year, and towards the autumn I became very much worried about his lassitude and general feeling of illness. I tried different diets without effect, and, thinking it might be better for him to go straight to bed after "the House," I took a house in London for him and settled him there, but he could not bear the loneliness and came back to Eltham as usual after a few nights. In November he became worse, and I insisted {245} upon his consulting a doctor, suggesting Sir Henry Thompson, as I had heard he was very clever. I took him to London on the afternoon of November 6, in a closed carriage, and he was feeling so weak and nervous that he asked me to go in and see Sir Henry first for him. His nerves had completely broken down and I felt terribly worried about him. He stayed in the waiting-room while I went into the consulting-room. Here Sir Henry hurried in from dinner, extremely irritable at being disturbed at such an unseemly hour for a "Mr. Charles Stewart," whom he did not know. "Look, look, _look_! Look at the clock! What's the matter? I have a consultation in a few minutes!"