CHAPTER X. 



HIS STUDIES AT THIS PERIOD : ELEMENTARY SUBJECTS 

 AND HERBS. 



JOHN'S unhappy domestic life during the eight years of 

 his residence in Aberdeen had greatly interfered with the 

 progress of the studies he had begun at Drumlithie, except 

 politics, which, amongst the keen polemical websters of 

 the city, had roused this increasing interest. But, with 

 the greater leisure of his enforced solitariness, and amidst 

 the sanative influences of the country life he now led, his 

 intellectual appetite revived, and he devoted himself with 

 redoubled earnestness and characteristic energy to certain 

 subjects which will now reward our attention. 



He set himself first to make up, as fully and as speedily 

 as possible, the defects of his early want of education. 



We have seen how he learnt to read, and the eagerness 

 with which he began to use this golden art. When he 

 learnt to write, it is now impossible to state. We have 

 found him working hard at it when living near Monymusk, 

 in 1828, that is in his thirty-fourth year, and making 

 creditable progress ; so that he was soon able to write 

 and receive letters. He carried on the careful practice 

 of it in set copies, moreover, for several years after that. 



The meaning and etymology of words claimed his early 



