3<DO MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. X. 



but you will see, that like yourself, I try to be ready either 

 for life or death." To Dr. Cairns, the lecture so painfully 

 brought the impression that he did speak unconsciously of 

 himself in its pages, that he immediately wrote to ask if he 

 felt worse in health. In reply George says, "Your very 

 kind letter took me by surprise. I did not intend, either in 

 the lecture or letter, to give expression to feelings so sad as 

 you have inferred me to be actuated by. The lecture was 

 delivered last February, not to provide an outlet for grief, 

 but to press some matters home to the minds of students 

 of medicine. Read as a whole, I entertain the hope that 

 the lecture will not be found unbecomingly or morbidly 

 sombre and grave. 



" As for the letter, it was written on Sabbath, and I there- 

 fore avoided lighter matters ; it was written also to you, 

 recently sorely tried by a mournful affliction, and therefore 

 it was grave. I do not at all disavow having been myself 

 grave in writing it, for personal reasons, but I cannot allow 

 you to expend an undeserved amount of sympathy on me, 

 who really am not making special complaint. 



" If I were to sit in medical judgment on my own case, I 

 should find it quite impossible to pronounce upon my own 

 viability. To be well enough to work is all a man needs to 

 be, and is all I expect. Latterly my working power has cer- 

 tainly been less than before, but it may quite well come 

 back. I can honestly assure you, that regarding my pros- 

 pect of life as a matter on which God has not given me a 

 decisive or preponderating answer in the negative, and feel- 

 ing that I do not deserve (as a profitable servant) to die, and 

 further despising the moral cowardice of shrinking -from 

 work, I am studying and labouring cheerfully as one who 

 may live and must not cumber the ground. . . . In reality, 

 the other world and the shadow of death have been in my 



