Then in 1890 the letters begin more and more to show a change in his handwriting. He no longer wrote in his original firm, clear style, but in a crabbed, cramped manner. His words now were often difficult to decipher, and the letters of the words very shaky and undecided, bearing witness very plainly of the trembling hand of Age. After mentioning the immense number of letters which he had to answer, and how the trouble of replying was almost beyond his strength, he says, "The sister-like affection of my honoured friend Anna Swanwick has ... again and again won me to London;... but the place seems never to agree with me. Partly the whirl by night and day, I suppose, is my bane; still more, the endless meeting of fresh and fresh small talk, with the fatigue of _listening_, and the impression on my brain of miscellaneous memories when I ought to sleep. In Oxford, from like causes, I became as it were 'daft,' and from forgetfulness of the right words could not complete an English sentence. A like affection came on me in London last summer, and I had to break away suddenly, to the disappointment of friends, because my own sense of _idiotcy_ was unbearable. Rest and sleep sufficed to restore me when I reached home. The inability to get out the right word, if (for instance) _suddenly_ asked 'to what station I am going,' is enough to make me seem insane or half asleep.... I am increasingly aware that my _brain_ is my weakest part.... On the whole I am healthy, and agile in all movement as are few men of my age (two doctors fancy that _all_ men of eighty-five have pulses as _disorderly_ as mine!)...." [Illustration: CARDINAL NEWMAN FROM AN OIL PAINTING BY MISS DEANE, OF BATH. PHOTO BY MESSRS. WEBSTER, CLAPHAM COMMON] As regards the work on the _Early Life of the Cardinal_, which was published at this time, he says:-- "I am (_under a sense of duty_) writing concerning the late Cardinal quite a different side of his character from that which for fifty years the public have heard. I knew him as eminently generous as to money, but so fanatical as to embarrass judgment of his character. Another weakness I confess and _lament_. I can write large. I begin everything with resolution so to write. But as soon as I think only of the substance, and forget the manner, my writing so dwindles that I can hardly read it myself. I suppose that weakness of the fingers is the cause. I see how deficient they are of flesh." In September, 1890, he wrote the following letters to Rev. J. K. Tucker, Rector of Pettaugh, Suffolk, who was an old friend of Newman's, and to Mr. John Henry Tucker, [Footnote: Which have been kindly lent me by Mr. John Warren.] from which I make quotations:-- "Ever since my brother's death (Cardinal J. H. N.) I am overwhelmed with letters, and now am writing more and longer every day than my fingers can well manage, for publishers eager for my MS." And again in October of the same year:--