1 6 Concerning Kingsleys in General i 



by the sudden appearance, round a bend in the road, 

 of a ragged, resolute, ruffian-looking young vagabond, 

 who, fixing his wild gray eyes on them, and uttering 

 an exclamation which they interpreted as a menace, 

 had approached them with, as they had thought, the 

 intention of peremptorily demanding alms ; and how a 

 close inspection had revealed that he was none other 

 than her own son George, returning literally from 

 Bohemia, with his clothes in tatters, the remnants of 

 his boots tied together with pieces of string, and his 

 face burnt as brown as a gipsy's, radiant with his 

 freedom and his joy at seeing her again. 



It seems strange at first sight that such a man 

 should have chosen the medical profession. The 

 atmosphere of the hospital ward and the sick-room 

 seems to go ill with his other tastes ; but his 

 choice represented that part of his many-minded- 

 ness that loved science, and his gentle and kindly 

 desire to do good, and his fighting, sporting instinct : 

 it gave him chances of fighting death and evil, and 

 he was very fond and very proud of his profession, 

 as in a way he always showed by using the nom de 

 plume of ' The Doctor.' 



In his medical-student days he applied himself 

 with such zeal to his work that he was senior prize- 

 man for anatomy in session 1842-43 at St. George's 

 Hospital, and passed his examination as Doctor of 

 Medicine at Edinburgh University in 1847, when 

 he was only twenty years of age. 



Certainly he had no reason to complain that the 



