332 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. XI. 



On the first Sunday of 1859, he tells Dr. Gladstone : 



" I found your kind and welcome letter awaiting me here 

 on my return from Bridge of Allan, where Jessie and I had 

 four very quiet and pleasant days. I have not felt up to the 

 mark at all this winter. . . . My worst complaint is a readily- 

 recurring haemorrhage from the lungs, which, though passive 

 rather than active, none the less steals the life-blood away, 

 and is the cause, I suppose, of the sense of weariness, good- 

 for-nothingness, slough-of-despondness, as May, I imagine, 

 would call it, which has lain heavily upon me. I ran away 

 to the Bridge of Allan to mend this, carrying with me 

 Jessie, a Bible, the Life of Milton, the Life of Douglas 

 Jerrold, Miss Adelaide Procter's Lyrics, four or five volumes 

 on Chemistry, and paper, pens, and ink.* I studied some 

 six hours, meditating and simmering over the metals on 

 which I am to give four special lectures, and wishing a 

 dozen times that you and other chemical friends were 

 within call. I read Jerrold, a bit of Milton, and lots of 

 Miss Procter, wrote out nearly a whole lecture, moralized 

 and chatted with Jessie, visited the magnificent neighbour- 

 hood, dined early, went to bed early, and came back 

 decidedly the better of my journey. 



" I have done little this winter. You will receive one of 

 these days a new edition of the Electric Telegraph, also a 

 Lecture on it. I raised a little money for a school by a 

 lecture on balloons, and helped at a very pleasant meeting 

 to raise money for the Special Indian Missionary Fund, and 

 took a hearty part at another assemblage intended to esta- 

 blish a Medical Missionary Dispensary, where the young 

 men will be trained as medical practitioners and evangelists 

 at the same time. It is a step in the right direction, and I 

 hope will prosper. 



