necessarily slow. But in time the tendency to inflammation diminished,
and the strength of the eye was confirmed more and more. It was at
length so far restored, that I could read for several hours of the day
though my labors in this way necessarily terminated with the daylight.
Nor could I ever dispense with the services of a secretary, or with the
writing-case; for, contrary to the usual experience, I have found writing a
severer trial to the eye than reading,--a remark, however, which does not
apply to the reading of manuscript; and to enable myself therefore, to
revise my composition more carefully, I caused a copy of the "History of
Ferdinand and Isabella" to be printed for my own inspection, before it
was sent to the press for publication. Such as I have described was the
improved state of my health during the preparation of the "Conquest of
Mexico"; and, satisfied with being raised so nearly to a level with the
rest of my species, I scarcely envied the superior good fortune of those
who could prolong their studies into the evening, and the later hours of
the night.

But a change has again taken place during the last two years. The sight
of my eye has become gradually dimmed, while the sensibility of the
nerve has been so far increased, that for several weeks of the last year I
have not opened a volume, and through the whole time I have not had the
use of it, on an average, for more than an hour a day. Nor can I cheer
myself with the delusive expectation, that, impaired as the organ has
become, from having been tasked, probably, beyond its strength, it can
ever renew its youth, or be of much service to me hereafter in my literary
researches. Whether I shall have the heart to enter, as I had proposed, on
a new and more extensive field of historical labor, with these
impediments, I cannot say. Perhaps long habit, and a natural desire to
follow up the career which I have so long pursued, may make this, in a
manner, necessary, as my past experience has already proved that it is