umours, fine occasional purposes of good,
flinching acceptance of evil, shiverings on wet, east-windy, morning
journeys up to class, infinite yawnings during lecture and unquenchable
gusto in the delights of truantry, made up the sunshine and shadow of my
college life. You cannot fancy what you missed in missing him; his
virtues, I make sure, are inconceivable to his successors, just as they
were apparently concealed from his contemporaries, for I was practically
alone in the pleasure I had in his society. Poor soul, I remember how
much he was cast down at times, and how life (which had not yet begun)
seemed to be already at an end, and hope quite dead, and misfortune and
dishonour, like physical presences, dogging him as he went. And it may
be worth while to add that these clouds rolled away in their season, and
that all clouds roll away at last, and the troubles of youth in
particular are things but of a moment. So this student, whom I have in
my eye, took his full share of these concerns, and that very largely by
his own fault; but he still clung to his fortune, and in the midst of
much misconduct, kept on in his own way learning how to work; and at
last, to his wonder, escaped out of the stage of studentship not openly
shamed; leaving behind him the University of Edinburgh shorn of a good
deal of its interest for myself.

But while he is (in more senses than one) the first person, he is by no
means the only one whom I regret, or whom the students of to-day, if
they knew what they had lost, would regret also. They have still Tait,
to be sure--long may they have him!--and they have still Tait's
class-room, cupola and all; but think of what a different place it was
when this youth of mine (at least on roll days) would be present on the
benches, and, at the near end of the platform, Lindsay senior[4] was
airing his robust old age. It is possible my successors may have never
even heard of Old Lindsay; but when he went, a link snapped with the
last century. He had something of a rustic air, sturdy and fresh and
plain; he spoke with a ripe east-country accent, which I used to admire;
his reminiscences were all of journeys on foot or highways busy with
post-chaises--a Scotland before steam; he had seen the coal fire on the
Isle of May, and he regaled me with tales of my own grandfather. Thus he
was for me a mirror of things perished; it was only in his memory that I
could see the huge shock of flames of the May beacon stream