I do not know what account E. gave you of my illness, but it is much too serious an affair to admit of our going to the British Association. Indeed, I hardly anticipate being able to make any engagements or do much work during the rest of my life, which is not likely to be a long one. It is just such an attack as I expected when walking with you over Magdalen Bridge.[117] Yours ever, G. J. ROMANES. By September he was able to listen to, and discuss, Dr. Sanderson's Presidential Address, which was delivered in Nottingham at the British Association of 1893. It was one of the great disappointments of that illness that he could not go to Nottingham. To be at the Association when his dear friend and master was president was a great wish of his, and early in the summer a kind invitation from Lady Laura Ridding, to stay with the Bishop of Southwell and herself for it, had been accepted. Nottingham and a visit to Denton, to which Mr. Romanes had been looking forward, had to be given up. These things were real trials. It was not the giving up particular bits of pleasure, but the realisation that he was too much of an invalid to do anything of the sort, which he found so hard to bear, and which he did bear with ever-increasing patience. His letters sometimes show how hard he felt his trial. _To James Romanes, Esq._ Oxford: September 4. My dearest James,--I have had two reasons for not writing to Dunskaith since my letter about the birth of Edmund. I agree with all you say about Fritz and her numerous brothers, the last two of whom you have never seen. But, although I have been so signally blest in my family ... I am not disposed to fall in with your optimism in other respects. Rather am I disposed to agree with the Scotch minister, that 'Man is a mi-ser-able worrm, craaling upon the airth;' for, both as regards the misery and the craaling I am now a type. And this brings me to my two reasons for not writing before. The first is, that I am almost unable to write; and the second is, that I did not want to let you and Charlotte know all the facts sooner than I could help. The long and the short of it is that I believe I am dying. I have been gradually getting worse and worse, ... nor shall I be sorry when it comes. Such being the case, I should like to consult you about setting my house in order.... The photos which the children brought with them of Dunskaith make me realise what splendid work the buildings are, and even although it is now improbable that I shall ever see them, I am glad to think that they will be in the family.[118] I cannot write more now. In fact I have not written so much since my attack. But I send you the best love of a life-time's growth and that of your only brother, GEORGE. _To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, Esq._ 94 St. Aldate's, Oxford: September 15, 1893.