1866

I come now to the last important event of my husband's life—the cessation of his connection with University College. In recording this I wish to dwell as little as possible on the fact, undoubted by all who were near him at the time, that his last illness resulted from mental trouble consequent upon it, in at least as great a degree as from the losses which befell us later. But however painful it is to write it, and however painful it may be to read for the survivors among those who were indirectly responsible for it, I have no choice but to state what was the belief of all who had the means of forming a true judgment.

He had joined University College in his early youth, in opposition to the advice of some of his nearest friends, who believed that his interests would not thereby be promoted, and to the satisfaction only of those in whose minds the upholding of a high principle was a more weighty consideration than worldly success or affluence. He was fully aware how much less lucrative a Professorship in a new institution was likely to be than many appointments which he might have obtained elsewhere. The associations, too, inseparable from a perfectly new institution were less congenial than those in which he would have found himself at either of the two Universities, where he would have worked under and with men whose habits of thought (in some ways) would have been more in harmony with his own.