c melancholy.
Cases of conscience were sometimes grievous to him, and that delicate
employment of a scientific witness cost him many qualms. But he found
respite from these troublesome humours in his work, in his lifelong
study of natural science, in the society of those he loved, and in his
daily walks, which now would carry him far into the country with some
congenial friend, and now keep him dangling about the town from one old
book-shop to another, and scraping romantic acquaintance with every dog
that passed. His talk, compounded of so much sterling sense and so much
freakish humour, and clothed in language so apt, droll, and emphatic,
was a perpetual delight to all who knew him before the clouds began to
settle on his mind. His use of language was both just and picturesque;
and when at the beginning of his illness he began to feel the ebbing of
this power, it was strange and painful to hear him reject one word after
another as inadequate, and at length desist from the search and leave
his phrase unfinished rather than finish it without propriety. It was
perhaps another Celtic trait that his affections and emotions,
passionate as these were, and liable to passionate ups and downs, found
the most eloquent expression both in words and gestures. Love, anger,
and indignation shone through him and broke forth in imagery, like what
we read of Southern races. For all these emotional extremes, and in
spite of the melancholy ground of his character, he had upon the whole a
happy life; nor was he less fortunate in his death, which at the last
came to him unaware.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] In Dr. Murray's admirable new dictionary, I have remarked a flaw
_sub voce_ Beacon. In its express, technical sense, a beacon may be
defined as "a founded, artificial sea-mark, not lighted."

[7] William Swan, LL. D., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the
University of St. Andrews, 1859-80: born 1818, died 1894.

X

TALK AND TALKERS

Sir, we had a good talk.--JOHNSON.

As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle
silence.--FRANKLIN.

I

There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable,
gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact, a thought, or an
illustration, pat to every subject; and not only to cheer the flight of
time among our intimates, but bear our part in that great international
congress, always sitting, where public wrongs are first declared, publ