44 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. III. 



on a grim, grinning battered skull, surmounted by two cross- 

 bones, the adornments of my mantel-piece. Nevertheless, I 

 am not to be outdone in grinning by a skull, and when any 

 odd idea comes from the caverns of my restless head, I grin 

 and show my teeth, and a great many more too, in a far 

 more joyous fashion than the said lifeless cranium can do. 



"Whatever the reason, medical men are never more at 

 fault than in reasoning on their own disorders. I seem to 

 have bid good-bye to a considerable portion of my senses, 

 not to talk of bottles, messages, appointments, and articles 

 of dress, forgotten, misapplied, or neglected; of a letter put 

 into the post-office marked paid, thrust into the common re- 

 ceiving aperture, and safely lodged at the bottom, before I 

 remembered that I had written in great characters the 

 ' paid ' so cheering to the receiver, but in this case, destined 

 only to raise the compassion, or awake the indignation of 

 the young lady, its recipient, at the melancholy poverty of 

 the writer 



" Now I think I know the reason of all this mental 

 absence, and as you are a discreet young lady, I shall not 

 scruple in confidence to tell you. I am over head and ears 

 in love, and the object of my attachment so thoroughly en- 

 grosses my thoughts, that I have scarce a speculation to 

 give to anything else, and though I have wooed her stead- 

 fastly, she, with the coyness and fickleness of her sex, gives 

 me but doubtful signs of a reciprocity of affection, and I 

 feel that I make but small progress in her esteem ; and 

 eager as I am to ingratiate myself with her, and high as I 

 should esteem the honour of having a most thorough ac- 

 quaintance with her, I know that many of my friends would 

 imagine her a very unfit companion, and I can conceive you 

 saying that although a lady might occasionally converse with 

 her, a familiar intimacy would be most undesirable, and I 



