1858.

POPULAR LECTURES.

317

alluded to, were four in number, their subject being the "Graphic Industrial Arts." One of them has become familiar to the public under the title, "Paper, Pen, and Ink." Looking back at the session when past, he says, "For the last two months I have been existing rather than living. Sleepless nights; aching limbs; the whole day a chronic malaise; and the smallest work an effort. My only painless moments were when lecturing. Then I forgot all, as also, of course, when asleep; but though assuredly I did sleep at times, I never had the feeling of rest, and hour after hour on to three or four in the morning, I wearily rolled about, listening to ancient Job saying, 'When I say my bed will comfort me, then thou scarest me with terrors.' The change of Government compelled me to get up a new set of petitions for the Museum, and I had three troublesome law cases to work at, and a sketch of Edward Forbes's Life to write for the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It is a chapter of the book at which I am now working, and proposing to work at till it is finished. I find it, however, so painful a task, that again and again I put it aside. Now I can look more calmly at the mournful history, and I have much profitable reading for it in botany, geology, and physical geography. . .

"Time in these telegraph days keeps up with the quickest of electrical flashes. Did I not awake one morning in February, and find myself forty? It is a desperate age for all the good one has done, and I say to myself, Had I known I should have lived so long, I would have done a great deal more.' And yet, would I? Perhaps much less, little as it is. I finished, a week ago, my third course on Technology. I have changed the subject each year, and have now completed (?) the round of vegetable,

1 "Macmillan's Magazine," November 1859.

mineral, and animal industrialism, and know my ground. There are fearful gaps to fill up, and a thousand things to learn, but I have had some of the same men all the three years, and have interested even soap-makers in soap-making. But all this is shockingly egotistical. The meaning is, that we have a vocation, and will do our best in it. . . . Have we not all of us a thousand reasons for thanking God that He has been so merciful to us, and that He has given us so much occasion for gratefulness? . . . We are in the hands of God, and know that our Redeemer liveth, and that our life is hid with Christ in God. I have been thinking a great deal about these things lately, and with many reproaches, striving to live nearer the Unseen."

1858.

CHAPTER XI.

THE STRUGGLE CLOSES: VICTORY WON.

319

"Translated into the Kingdom of His dear Son."

"So much as moments are exceeded by eternity, and the sighing of a man by the joys of an angel, and a salutary frown by the light of God's countenance, a few groans, by the infinite and eternal hallelujahs; so much are the sorrows of the godly to be undervalued in respect of what is deposited for them in the treasures of eternity."

"April 26, 1858.

"MY DEAR JEANIE,-If you wish to see a lazy man, take Pussy, mesmerize her, and make her clairvoyante, desire her (in spirit) to go to the railway station, take a ticket, enter a first-class carriage, and go on, on, on, till she comes to the Bridge of Allan.

"Tell her to get out there, taking care not to leave her parasol or smelling-bottle behind her, enter the omnibus, and request to be set down at Sunnylaw House. When she is there, she will mysteriously tell you that an awful black dog, called Betty (in reality, a very mild canine lady) guards the gate, whilst a connexion of her own, stout and comfortable, basks in the sun, as respectable cat-matrons of her years love to do. She will further describe to you a room with one oriel window, looking, south on the bed of a fishing stream and a line of railway, which occupy different heights in a valley rising into a fine sky-line crowded

with trees, behind which we see the sun set, and the stars rise.

"Further, after describing a faymale, something like yourself in look, Pussy will signify that there is a spectacled member of the other sex, lounging in an easy chair, making pretence of studying and working. His name, Pussy will spell for you, if you give her letters of the alphabet, taking care, of course, that she is in the mesmeric rapture, and putting down the whole alphabet before her on the floor. She will then hunt among the letters till she finds one, snatch it up like a mouse, and deposit it in a corner, then another hunt, and another deposit, and so on, till the whole word is made thus: D-O- S— I— E—, which being interpreted reads Dosie, a name given to me by, we won't say whom, because I am always in a doze. You will then unmesmerize Pussy, and give her a bowl of cream.-Your loving GEORGE."

66

Such are the directions given to a sister to discover the spring retreat. Notes to his mother speak of the house as delightfully situated, looking out over a wide stretch of hill and valley, with something higher than hills on the horizon, a stream in the lowest valley-bed, and fields between, occupied at present by matron sheep with lambs, some black, some white. One patient mother has, by maternal right or adoption, both a black and a white lamb, and I interpret her language towards the thirsty and impatient couple to be

'Drink fair,

My piebald pair.'

"I wonder if an American ewe has ever one twin black and the other white? I reckon not. The greatest nation in creation would be endangered by such an event. Poor

1858.

CHEMISTRY CHAIR VACANT.

321

Blackie would be quickly doomed to Lynch law. . Before I left Edinburgh, a friend told me that his late grandmother, when nearly ninety, speaking of heaven, said, 'It was nae for the like of Jenny Brown and her to expect to get far ben; but may be they would get seats on the hinmost 1 benks near the door.' Good old body, I hope she is far ben by this time."

"Tuesday.

"As I have not the porcelain tablet2 beside me, I pick up this scrap of paper instead thereof to write a line upon. I think I begin to mend. Yesterday was a delightful day. My limbs ache less. I sleep better, and feel less languid. The great quietness and serenity of this place calm and soothe me, and the almost entire rest to which I surrender myself, is slowing my pulse, and clearing my brains perceptibly. We have what I have long wished for, a western window with a wide prospect. Lambs and crows, and the sound of running water, the steam-engine whistle, and the lowing of distant cattle, prevent utter solitude. The sky is ever changing, and in the evening a crescent moon and the evening star play at hide-and-seek among the clouds."

From this pleasant life, with "the absence of businessworry, the easy morning's literary work, the long profitable readings and meditations, and the soothing influence of green fields, and blue or sunny skies," he was speedily roused, and cast into the whirlpool of this world's cares. Intelligence reached him while at Bridge of Allan of the death of Dr. Gregory, Professor of Chemistry in the Edin

1 Farthest back seats.

2 Conversation with his mother was often carried on by means of the tablet alluded to. It is now preserved, with the last words he wrote on it, no one being permitted to use it after him.