GENERAL STUDIES IN LATER YEARS. 311 



cussions, no doubt greatly on account of his advancing 

 years ; besides, their subjects, being chiefly literary, were not 

 so much in John's line. They do not seem to have asked 

 him to write on any of his scientific specialities, nor to have 

 known that he had any gift in that way or had done work 

 in it already ; and he was not the man to tell them. John 

 thought, and perhaps correctly, that in their discussions there 

 was often more sound than substance ; but in this criticism, 

 he forgot that it is one of the aims of such societies to train 

 to the effective regulation of sound, in other words, to learn 

 how to speak, in which John himself was much behind, 

 having had no such opportunities in his neglected youth. 



For general gossiping, John had neither relish nor time, 

 and he was not slow to express his strong contempt for it ; 

 vastly preferring his books, plants, and pilgrim staff to such 

 empty pastime, even when innocent. As Mrs. Webster 

 bears witness, in all his abundant conversation at her fire- 

 side, he " never spoke ill o' his nee'bours ; never abused ony 

 body wi' his tongue." 



At my first visit to him, I asked him if his neighbours 

 did not visit him. He said that they did at times, but he 

 did not care very much for their calls, for most of them 

 wasted his time and were rough with his plants. " Then," 

 said he, "the maist o' them can speak o' naething but 

 nowt ! * o' nou't but nowt ! " 



The whole style of the man, and his strong objection to 

 mere gossipy talk, forcibly suggest his likeness in this 

 respect to Wordsworth, as given in his admirable poem on 

 " Personal Talk," much of which expresses very happily the 

 feelings and habits of the botanist as well as of the poet 

 * Cattle, the same as the English neat^ as in neat-herd, or cow-herd. 



