326 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. XI. 



his host, Dr. Day, he sat to Mr. Rodgers for the calotype 

 from which the portrait attached to this volume is engraved. 

 The month of August and part of September were spent in 

 a small farm house, near Innerleithen. The only dwelling 

 visible from it is a deserted house at a considerable dis- 

 tance. The Tweed passes before it, and " the little hills 

 rejoice on every side." To be thus alone with nature was 

 a solace to the weary worker, craving for rest. "We have 

 been here," he tells his brother, " for more than a month, 

 beside the rippling Tweed and the quiet hills, singularly 

 well off in some respects ; nevertheless, I have not felt 

 moved to write to you, being too tired after a summer's 

 engrossing work to feel a pen a welcome instrument, and 

 compelled notwithstanding to keep it going for some hours 

 each day. A holiday without any heavy writing is one of 

 the delights I look forward to. Lots of continuous reading 

 in the open air, with many musings over what is read ; 

 perhaps a verse or two spun, but the brain upon the whole 

 lying fallow, or getting only a mild top-dressing of intellec- 

 tual guano, is my lazy notion of a rustical month of holi- 

 days. I would have written to you if I had had anything 

 to write, but I had nothing in the way of business, and the 

 reflection on paper of my monotonous life here would give 

 no amusement. I had a faint purpose of going to Leeds 

 to the British Association meeting, which comes off ten 

 days hence, but I don't feel strong enough for the excite- 

 ment, and won't go. I paid for my Dublin journey last 

 autumn with a sharp attack of splenitis, which pulled me 

 down all the winter ; and my weary lungs bleed on the 

 least provocation. It makes me smile grimly to find that 

 I must avoid a volume of ' Punch,' as he makes me laugh 

 at a rate of which my wind organ by no means., approves. 

 Here I am resting these troublesome bellows, so as to make 



