86 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IV. 



but separate copies will also be printed ; in truth, it is a 

 College law, that if a Thesis be printed, so many copies 

 (forty or seventy) must be sent to the University. 



" It is noc every author who is- provided with readers in 

 this way, and spared the necessity of invoking gentle readers 

 and a generous public. I shall probably (for I am restricted 

 as to room in the Club volume) incorporate a portion of the 

 supplement into the text of the Thesis, which I begin to- 

 morrow to remodel, and leave the rest for a separate paper; 

 By publishing my result in two papers, I shall have the first 

 and most important part, perfect as I hope to make it in 

 itself, free from the objections which may be raised against 

 the second, and might thus draw down undeserved condem- 

 nation on the first. Samuel, my kind, estimable friend, will 

 probably go to Birmingham ; if he does, he will read my 

 essay to them, as I have no thought of going thither." 



Thus were the dreams of youthful years to a great extent 

 realized. Steadily upwards had been the course ; unflinching 

 diligence and sturdy perseverance surmounting difficulties 

 at which a less courageous spirit would have quailed. In 

 concluding this chapter, however, one thing must not be 

 overlooked ; viz., the fact that he passed with so little injury 

 to his moral life through the temptations thickly besetting a 

 medical student's life, and by means of which many who 

 shared with him a brilliant noon-day, have brought an eclipse 

 on their after years, or have sunk in dark and gloomy clouds 

 below the horizon. In later years he felt deeply grateful, and 

 he often expressed wonder, that he had been thus preserved. 

 Much of his safety may be attributed to early training and 

 pleasant home influences ; much also to the happy buoy- 

 ancy of spirit that never forsook him, while the eager craving 

 after knowledge left no room for baser tastes to develop 



