Confined though he so much was to one room, yet time did not hang on his hands. His eyesight happily remained strong, and he was a great reader. In the pages of a novel for many years he found pleasant repose. Few men, indeed, were more deeply read than he in fiction. Science, too, as I have shown, took up much of his time. Astronomy remained to the last his favourite study. Poetry did not throw her charm over him--at least to any great extent. Yet one day he told me that he had just finished "Paradise Lost." "Milton," he said with a smile, "does not, in my opinion, prove his case." His money accounts he kept with the utmost exactness, even to a late age. Two years before his death he told me that he could not expect to live much longer, for his mental strength was steadily failing. He had been obliged to give up even his account-keeping, which had been a pleasure to him from a very early age. A day or two before, he added with an air of great vexation, he had had to make an entry of money received, and he had entered it as money paid. Few things pleased him more than to talk over his past life. I find the following record among the notes that I took of his talk. "As he told me this day the story of his youth, and the difficulties that he had overcome, the old man grew eloquent. If his words could have been taken down, they would have read like a chapter of De Foe. I was filled with admiration of his powers." Nothing touched him more than the memory of some kindness that had been done him. He was grateful to all who had at any time, in any way, helped him; but his gratitude overflowed towards those who had rendered him help in the struggles of his youth. A year before his death he could not be satisfied till he had put on record the names of those who, more than seventy years before, had lent his father money in the time of his greatest straits. The loans had been long since paid off--mainly by the son's efforts as I have shown--but the memory of these benefactors was not to be suffered to pass away from his father's family. At no time was his thoughtfulness for others more shown than in the winter of 1876, when he was suddenly struck down by an attack that threatened paralysis. Forgetful of himself at so awful a time, he thought only of others. It so happened that in a few weeks' time he would have had to make me a certain payment. He remembered that I had been suffering from a long illness, and he feared that I might be put to some inconvenience should payment be delayed. He sent to ask me to let him know at once the amount that would be due, so that he might sign the cheque before his hand was paralysed. During the same attack his son asked him whether he would like to consult one of his nephews--a surgeon in whose skill he had great trust. He had, indeed, he answered, wished to send for him. As, however, his own doctor had not suggested, it, he had not said anything for fear of hurting his feelings.