"And then, in later life, came the daring which, by its results, brought his active career to a close. He conscientiously desired to fulfil an engagement to lecture at the British Institution, and was not deterred by fear of consequences.
"He gave the lecture, notwithstanding the protest which for days before his system had been making. The result was a serious illness, threatening, as he thought at one time, a fatal result; and notwithstanding a year's furlough for the recovery of health, he was eventually obliged to resign his position. But for this defiance of Nature, there might have been many more years of scientific exploration, pleasurable to himself and beneficial to others; and he might have escaped that invalid life which for a long time he had to bear. In his case, however, the penalties of invalid life had great mitigations--mitigations such as fall to the lot of few.
"It is conceivable that the physical discomforts and mental weariness which ill-health brings may be almost, if not quite, compensated by the pleasurable emotions caused by unflagging attentions and sympathetic companionship. If this ever happens, it happened in his case. All who have known the household during these years of nursing are aware of the unmeasured kindness he has received without ceasing. I happen to have had special evidence of this devotion on the one side and gratitude on the other, which I do not think I am called upon to keep to myself, but rather to do the contrary. In a letter I received from him some half-dozen years ago, referring, among other things, to Mrs. Tyndall's self-sacrificing care of him, occurred this sentence: 'She has raised my ideal of the possibilities of human nature.'"
"Amok" is an innovation which I do not recommend. It consists in letting go when things get too bad, and doing damage with tongue, hands and feet. It is the tantrum carried to its logical conclusion. I saw one instance where a henpecked husband "ran amok" and killed or wounded seventeen people before he himself was killed. It is the national and therefore the honorable mode of committing suicide among the natives of Celebes, and is the fashionable way of escaping from their difficulties. A man can not pay, he is taken for a slave, or has gambled away his wife or child into slavery, he sees no way of recovering what he has lost, and becomes desperate. He will not put up with such cruel wrongs, but will be revenged on mankind and die like a hero. He grasps his knife, and the next moment draws out the weapon and stabs a man to the heart. He runs on with bloody kris in his hand, stabbing every one he meets. "Amok! Amok!" then resounds through the streets. Spears, krises, knives, guns and clubs are brought out against him. He rushes madly forward, kills all he can--men, women and children--and dies, overwhelmed by numbers, amid all the excitement of a battle.