The Life and Writings of Henry Thomas Buckle (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. Responsibility--Kindness--Alexandria--Cairo--The Nile--Education--Thebes--Talk with Mr. Longmore--Nubiti--Love of Antiquities--Preparations for the Desert--Stay in Cairo--Suez--Major Macdonald--Sinai--Petra--Jerusalem--Dead Sea--Mill on Buckle--Nabulus--Nazareth--The Fatal Illness--Visit from Mr. Gray--Tiberias--Akka--Tyre--Sidon--Tho Last Letter--Beyrout--Damascus--Illness increasing--Death. On Sunday, 20tk October, 1861, Buckle embarked at Southampton on the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamship Ceylon, for Alexandria, and saw the shores of England for the last time. He had now undertaken, for the first time in his life, the responsible care of two children, one fourteen and the other eleven years old, of whom, moreover, he knew little beyond what he had gleaned from their parents and the family physician. He knew his responsibility, and undertook their care as none without his depth of feeling and warmth of heart could have done. How he understood it is shown by the following letter, written soon after his return from Nubia: "I do not wonder at your anxiety in being so long without intelligence; but I have done all in my power, and have never, since we left England, allowed a post to go by without writing. Your picture of your imagination of my hanging over the bed of a sick boy, and bringing you back a child the less, has gone to my very heart, and made me feel quite miserable, since I know what must have passed through your mind and what you must have suffered before you would write this. But why, dear Mrs. Huth, why will you allow your judgment to be led captive by such dark imaginings? I never begin any considerable enterprise without well weighing the objections against it. In taking your children where I have taken them, and wh...