PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i 



' After dinner an old man, whom I had observed 

 promenading the road before the inn, came into the 

 room and took off his hat ; his hair was bleached. In 

 an instant a recollection flashed upon me. I started 

 up and stretched out my hand, crying, " Mr. - , 

 I am delighted to see you," for my heart warmed 

 towards him, in spite of all his want of consideration 

 and kindness when long ago I sat, a boy, at a desk in 

 his office. How changed care and anxiety have made 

 him ! He is an old, old man, though only sixty-one, 

 and has been very ill/ 



There never appears to have been any question in 

 the family but that Andrew was to devote himself to 

 mercantile pursuits. Yet, from the very outset, he 

 kept his interests broad, and made amends for his 

 curtailed education by cultivating his mind with wide 

 reading. His natural tastes led him to continue the 

 literary pursuits that had from his early years been so 

 well fostered at home. He was an omnivorous reader, 

 and acquired a facility in expressing himself in clear, 

 vigorous language. 



An interesting relic of this period of his life has 

 survived in the shape of a few numbers of a manu- 

 script periodical, written by him and a few young men 

 of similar tastes. He acted as editor, and the paper 

 circulated among the families and friends of the con- 

 tributors during the years 1835 an d 1836. It bore 

 the name of * Ramsay's Miscellaneous Journal,' and 

 upon the wrapper of each number, in the handwriting 

 of the editor, some appropriate motto appeared from a 

 play of Shakespeare or a poem of Pope. The articles 

 contributed by him included some nightmare hallu- 

 cinations and sketches of character, with occasional 

 sonnets and odes, more or less grotesque in subject 



