commission and omission, I set my face against the publication of a third
edition, hoping that a compilation more worthy of Free Thought might be
made. I am half inclined to take the matter up again, and set to work at
a fresh collection.

The delivery and publication of a course of six lectures on the early
part of the French Revolution was another portion of that autumn's work;
they involved a large amount of labor, as I had determined to tell the
story from the people's point of view, and was therefore compelled to
read a large amount of the current literature of the time, as well as the
great standard histories of Louis Blanc, Michelet, and others.
Fortunately for me, Mr. Bradlaugh had a splendid collection of works on
the subject, and before he left England he brought to me two cabs full of
books, French and English, from all points of view, aristocratic,
ecclesiastical, democratic, and I studied these diligently and
impartially until the French Revolution became to me as a drama in which
I had myself taken part, and the actors therein became personal friends
and foes. In this, again, as in so much of my public work, I have to
thank Mr. Bradlaugh for the influence which led me to read fully all
sides of a question, and to read most carefully those from which I
differed most, ere I judged myself competent to write or to speak
thereon.

The late autumn was clouded by the news of Mr. Bradlaugh's serious
illness in America. After struggling for some time against ill-health he
was struck down by an attack of pleurisy, to which soon was added typhoid
fever, and for a time lay at the brink of the grave. Dr. Otis, his able
physician, finding that it was impossible to give him the necessary
attendance at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, put him into his own carriage and
drove him to the Hospital of St. Luke's, where he confided him to the