Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/756

ÆT. 63] suns. Off Bergen a last gleam of the Viking spirit came over him as he gazed on "the old hills which the eyes of the old men looked on when they did their best against the Weirds." But his own fighting days were over.

He stayed at Vadsö near the North Cape for the week in which the steamer went on to Spitzbergen and returned. On the morning of the 18th of August he arrived again at Tilbury, with only one anxious wish, to get away to Kelmscott as soon as possible. But his illness took a serious turn a day or two afterwards, and the doctors had to forbid his removal. He never left Hammersmith again. He was so weak now that he had to dictate the few letters he wrote, though on some days he did a little designing of letters and ornaments for the Press. To his old friend, Mr. Thomas Wardle of Leek, who had written pressing him to try the effect of rest and the pure Derbyshire air at Swainslow, he wrote as follows, the body of the letter being dictated and the signature added feebly in his own hand:

"Kelmscott House, "August 26th, 1896.

"My dear Wardle,

"It is very kind of you to invite me to share in your paradise, and I am absolutely delighted to find another beautiful place which is still in its untouched loveliness. I should certainly have accepted your invitation, but I am quite unable to do so, for at present I cannot walk over the threshold, being so intensely weak. The Manifold is the same river, is it not, which you carried me across on your back, which situation tickled us so much that, owing to inextin-