sentences:  His last great work was his autobiography, "Praeterita" (1885–89) (meaning, 'Of Past Things'), a highly personalised, selective, eloquent but incomplete account of aspects of his life, the preface of which was written in his childhood nursery at Herne Hill.The period from the late 1880s was one of steady and inexorable decline.Gradually it became too difficult for him to travel to Europe.