1 839-4- DESIRES TO LECTURE. 93 



" We are men, and will strive to look things in the face ; to 

 bear is to conquer our fate," he goes on to tell Daniel of 

 his immediate plans and prospects : " I am sure you will 

 approve of my continuing to study this winter, on the plea 

 of better fitting myself thereby for fruitful work. You 

 may be certain I have convinced myself of this before I 

 thought of classes. Further, you know that I have striven 

 to get a situation and have failed, and at present I would 

 gladly take one could I get it. Limiting that gladness, 

 however, by two conditions, the one that it should not 

 take me from Edinburgh, for the sake of Mary, who is still 

 in a very precarious state of health, and, now that Catherine 

 and B. are gone, has no friend near her with whom to com- 

 mune ; the other, that it should be worth taking, in the 

 sense of leading to something better, for it would be folly 

 for me to take a post which should be trifling, and by con- 

 suming my time, prevent me from qualifying myself for 

 another and a better. But I may perhaps get some Satur- 

 day lecturing in the provincial towns about. This I intend, 

 if possible, to obtain. 



" Meanwhile, I have been working at mathematics and 

 algebra, attending a class, and making some progress ; in 

 mathematics getting on sufficiently well, but a good deal 

 stumbled in algebra by my sheer ignorance of common 

 arithmetic. But being engaged at home in the revision of 

 that, I look to quickly making up all lee-way, and succeed- 

 ing in algebraic computation fully. ... I shall have little 

 time for letters this winter, and only on short paper" 



Notwithstanding this prudent warning, a letter on fools- 

 cap was not long in following, with no lack of interest- 

 ing information, and fun in addition ; we give an extract 

 from it. 



"I think you will be pleased with the consideration of 



