164 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VII. 



as I feel every lesson less than sufficient to teach me the 

 patience and faith I so much require, I feel every disposition 

 to look with a cold eye of curiosity on God's dealings with 

 me, at once silenced. I know now enough of the ' peace that 

 passeth all understanding/ to welcome the attainment of 

 more of it at any price its great Giver may afford it to me. 

 Is there not something presumptuous in that expression 1 

 There is only humble hope at least in my heart. 



" A week has elapsed since I wrote the preceding part of 

 this. , . Yesterday I received your second letter, on which 

 I would expend much praise, if it would not waste paper. 

 Suffice it therefore to say, that we all read it with pleasure, 

 and that I have no wish you should displace Schelling or 

 Neander in your descriptions, by any of the great physiker. 

 I get enough of them, and need accounts of the others to 

 keep my soul from growing altogether one-sided. Judge of 

 this by the life I lead at present. At ten A.M. I descend to 

 the laboratory, where I work till four P.M. driving out, when 

 the day is fine, for one or two hours. The interval between 

 four and six is spent how do you think? in sleeping, 

 positively in slumbers, so wearied am I with my day's work. 

 At six I descend again, and remain till nine or ten, and 

 when I come up again, some talk with Mary, a glance at 

 an * Athenaeum,' and I am ready for bed. For the last six 

 weeks I have scarcely got so much as the newspapers read, 

 and have been thankful to secure a chapter of the Bible, 

 and leave all else unread. Much of this labour has been 

 spent on mere drudgework analysis of soils, wheat, etc. 

 But the chief cause of such working has been the great 

 question of transmutation, at which I may, without any 

 exaggeration, say I have laboured night and day, and 

 laboured, I am sorry to say, to very little purpose. Two 

 of his [Dr. Brown's] cousins, and Mr. Goodsir, -besides 



