me.... [This was the beginning of my acquaintance with the
celebrated surgeon Liston, who afterward became an intimate friend
of ours, and to whose great professional skill my father was
repeatedly indebted for relief under a most painful malady. He was
a son of Sir Robert Liston, and cousin of the celebrated comedian,
between whom and himself, however, there certainly was no family
likeness, Liston, the surgeon, being one of the handsomest persons
I ever saw. The last time I saw him has left a melancholy
impression on my mind of his fine face and noble figure. He had
been attending me professionally, but I had ceased to require his
care, and had not seen him for some time, when one morning walking,
according to my custom in summer, before seven o'clock, as I came
to the bridge over the Serpentine in Kensington Gardens, a horseman
crossing the bridge stopped by the iron railing, and, jumping off
his horse, came toward me. It was Liston, who inquired kindly after
my health, and, upon my not answering quite satisfactorily, he
said, "Ah! well, you are better than I am." I laughed
incredulously, as I looked at a magnificent figure leaning against
the great black horse he rode, and looking like a model of manly
vigor and beauty. But in less than a week from that day Liston died
of aneurism; and I suppose that when I met him he was well aware of
the death which had got him literally by the throat.]

_Saturday, 7th._--Miserable day of parting! of tearing away and
wrenching asunder!... At eleven we were obliged to go to rehearsal,
and when we returned found my mother busy with her packing.... When
she was gone, I sat down beside my father with a book in my hand,
not reading, but listening to his stifled sobbing; and every now
and then, in spite of my determination not to do it, looking up to
see how far the ship had moved. (Our windows looked over the
Forth.) But the white column of steam was rising steadily from
close under Newhaven, and for upward of half an hour continued to
do so. I had resolved not to raise my eyes again from my book, when
a sudden exclamation from my father made me spring up, and I saw
the steamer had left the shore, and was moving fast toward
Inchkeith, the dark smoky wake that lingered behind it showing how
far it had already