74 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IV. 



" With forms more graceful, and with vestments clad, 



Such as the haughty prelate never wore, 

 They give to God an adoration glad, 



That well might teach us all our souls to pour 

 In high-souled, earnest, heaven-uplifted prayer, 

 To Him who doth for all his children care. 



" We are all pretty well. Mary not so well as she was ; 

 but some cold east winds having blown by, I look for her 

 soon being better again. Write to mother soon. She tells 

 rue I am not improved by my visit to London, which of 

 course means, I am worse. Don't you earn this character." 



The next letter to Daniel gives a choice specimen of the 

 fun ever ready to brim over on the slightest occasion. The 

 British Association met that year in Birmingham, and the 

 possibility of attending its meetings is alluded to. 



" Is not this letter-writing a poor, lean, meagre apology 

 for talking and laughing, and looking happy and looking 

 sour, and l>eing merry, and being perverse, and sitting side 

 by side, and drinking and smoking, and seeing each other's 

 faces, and watching eyebrows going up, and eyes sparkling, 

 and brows knitting, and lips pursing and pouting, and lines 

 moving from corner to corner of your friend's face ? And 

 what aid lendeth the sketch of my viznomy in helping you 

 to realize my April-day countenance, and fill up the blanks 

 of my written talk to you, by thinking of the look which 

 tells the sentence before the words come, and might teach 

 us to keep our lips closed, and be content to make faces at 

 each other 1 I will invent a system of symbols, and chalk 

 down eyes and noses, and lips and brows, and tell my tale 

 by some other way than blots and blurs, and stops and 

 commas, and scrawly sentences. It is no use writing you 

 news ; every fact is twisted and set awry before it reaches 

 you. Our epistles always set off at the same time, and, like 



