e most striking instances that could be given of the
character of the dutiful, truthful, laborious man, who works on
bravely in spite of difficulty and physical suffering, is presented
in the life of the late George Wilson, Professor of Technology in the
University of Edinburgh. Wilson's life was, indeed, a marvel of
cheerful laboriousness; exhibiting the power of the soul to triumph
over the body, and almost to set it at defiance. It might be taken as
an illustration of the saying of the whaling-captain to Dr. Kane, as
to the power of moral force over physical: "Bless you, sir, the soul
will any day lift the body out of its boots!"

A fragile but bright and lively boy, he had scarcely entered manhood
ere his constitution began to exhibit signs of disease. As early,
indeed, as his seventeenth year, he began to complain of melancholy
and sleeplessness, supposed to be the effects of bile. "I don't think
I shall live long," he then said to a friend; "my mind will--must
work itself out, and the body will soon follow it." A strange
confession for a boy to make! But he gave his physical health no fair
chance. His life was all brain work, study, and competition. When he
took exercise it was in sudden bursts, which did him more harm than
good. Long walks in the Highlands jaded and exhausted him; and he
returned to his brain-work unrested and unrefreshed.

It was during one of his forced walks of some twenty-four miles, in
the neighborhood of Stirling, that he injured one of his feet, and he
returned home seriously ill. The result was an abscess, disease of
the ankle-joint, and a long agony, which ended in the amputation of
the right foot. But he never relaxed in his labors. He was now
writing, lecturing and teaching chemistry. Rheumatism and acute
inflammation of the eye next attacked him, and were treated by
cupping, blistering, and colchicum. Unable himself to write, he went
on preparing his lectures, which he dictated to his sister. Pain
haunted him day and night, and sleep was only forced by morphia.
While in this state of general prostration symptoms of pulmonary
disease began to show themselves. Yet he continued to give the weekly
lectures to which he stood committed to the Edinburgh School of Arts.
Not one was shirked, though their delivery, before a large audience,
was a most exhausting duty. "Well, there's another nail put into my
coffin," was the remark made on throwing off his top-coat on
returning home; and a slee