1 838-39- LONGINGS IN SPRING. 69 



good, but my daily occupations are uninteresting, and I 

 never get a walk, even through the streets of London. It is 

 this makes me wish my friends to write to me, as I have 

 no materials whence to devise letters for them. I was 

 lately visited by one of those yearnings which I think must 

 often visit London-detained Scotchmen, an intense fancy 

 for a walk by a babbling brook, a bright conception of hills 

 and rocks and trees, such as I have somewhere seen long 

 ago either in day dreams or night visions ; but such thoughts 

 I always have in the spring months, and' I believe I could 

 as little gratify them in Edinburgh as here. . . . Talking of 

 poor folks, and thinking of the black man, and the other 

 black man, the sweep, 1 I think I can now sympathize with 

 a sweep's Sunday feelings. One of my prospects of the 

 day is, that I'll have my hands clean the whole of it. ... 

 Remember me to all the poor people, and if you ever long 

 for me, think how soon you shall see your most affectionate 

 son, " GEORGE." 



Daniel notes in evidence of the versatility of taste which 

 kept the balance straight between work and recreation : 

 " Leisure was found in spite of much occupation, for an oc- 

 casional evening with the poets ; and writing verses grave 

 and gay. One or two of his earlier efforts have already 

 been given ; and a memorial of the poetical pastimes of this 

 season lies by me now, in the form of a well-filled MS. 

 volume of our joint rhymes, to which he more than once 

 refers in subsequent letters. 



" The volume is illustrated with pen-and-ink sketches, 

 and one of the lighter effusions of ' Bottle Imp's' (George's 



1 Acquaintances made in the Infirmary during his apprenticeship, 

 and kept on as pensioners. 



