The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

AN OVERWROUGHT BRAIN. 421
to admit of my selecting days when the weather, my health, and all
other circumstances are favourable."
He next describes the mode in which he suffered
through
the action of others :
" The disturbances from which I most frequently suffer are noises,
especially when unexpected ; as, for instance, the sudden opening or
closing of a door, the dropping of any article on the floor.
Some protection is afforded me by increasing deafness, whatever the
inconvenience of such infirmity. Again, I am painfully sensible to
a shake so slight as to be imperceptible to one in ordinary health ;
such, for instance, as is produced by any one walking across the
room save with an almost cat-like tread, or by a touch to my chair
so slight as even the mere brush of the servant's clothes against it
as he waits at table. Further, I am annoyed by any of those
repeated movements of hands or ringers which are habitual to some
people, though against this particular annoyance I find some protection
in taking a book or newspaper and interposing it as a
screen."
I may mention here, as an instance of his delicate
consideration for the feelings of others, that I had
often noticed when I went to see him how he thus
screened his eyes. It was not till I read this account
of his health that I was in the least aware that it was
against my restlessness that he was screening himself.
Beneath the balcony that he had built for himself,
wherein he hoped, each year as the suns grew warm,
to breathe the fresh air, the Metropolitan Asylums
Board set up a Small-Pox Hospital. Within a few
yards of the old man's only walk ran the road along
which, day after day for many a month, passed a sad
train of ambulances and a still sadder train of hearses.
For the signal benefit that he had conferred not
only on England, but on the whole world, he had been
hitherto rewarded and honoured by a gratitude that
was as strong as it was general, by the free gifts of
his countrymen and the vote of Parliament. The