He was seated when I came
in, and as his eyes encountered mine, I detected the traces of tears
upon his cheeks. My heart was full of love for my father, or childlike
adoration it might have been called. I hurried to him and embraced him.
The tenderness overcame his habitual self-restraint and he seemed to
fall sobbing in my arms.
"My son," he finally whispered, "my days are drawing very fast to a
close. The shock I experienced at Christ Church prepared me to believe I
would die in some attack of paralysis. A slight aphasia occurred this
morning. It, too, as suddenly disappeared. But these warnings cannot be
neglected. I and you must at once make preparations for that future
colloquy which we must endeavor to establish between ourselves, when I
have left this earth and you yet remain upon it.
"I have been thinking a good deal on this subject and my reflections
have resulted in this conclusion."
His voice had now resumed its usual melody and power, and we sat down
while he turned the pages of Prof. Bain's little work entitled "Mind and
Body." He read (I marked at the time the passage): "The memory rises
and falls with the bodily condition; being vigorous in our fresh moments
and feeble when we are fatigued or exhausted. It is related by Sir Henry
Holland that on one occasion he descended, on the same day, two mines in
the Hartz Mountains, remaining some hours in each. In the second mine he
was so exhausted with inanition and fatigue, that his memory utterly
failed him; he could not recollect a single word of German.
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