194 EDINBURGH 



To Dawson Turner 



January 16, 1845. 



As to lecturing in London, there is at present no opening 

 for it, nor should I like it except it was surely profitable. 

 You do not know, nor do I like to tell my Parents, how wholly 

 unfitted I am to be a Lecturer, constitutionally in particular. 

 I am really nervous to a degree, and though I joined debating 

 societies on purpose and studied speeches and stood up too 

 to deliver them, I never could get two sentences on — I have 

 earnestly endeavoured to conquer this, but without avail. 

 I have consulted medical men, who tell me I have irritability 

 in the action of the heart, which some have pronounced a 

 slight disease of that organ ; and this I know well, that I 

 could never even stand up before my fellow scholars to say 

 my lesson at school or college without violent palpitation. 

 You know me too well to think me a coward, or, still less, 

 to accuse me of affectation, but this I do certainly think, 

 that I am naturally unfitted for any situation calling for a 

 public exhibition of myself. My case is not as if I never 

 had to 'parse or construe before a body of fellow mortals, for 

 surely if this feeling was ever to be overcome, it would have 

 been in eight years of college-life and with my efforts at 

 debating, where I have always had to sit down in shame 

 and confusion, however carefully I had conned my speech. 

 This, and this alone, has led me always to hope that I should 

 pick up some situation where hard work and good manners 

 were all that should be required of me, though in leaving 

 the public path I should not so soon rise into notoriety. 



Of course I should forego all this dislike, or, as I believe, 

 physical incapacity for lecturing, were anything so tempting 

 as Edinbro' offered, and even then one's own students would 

 form a more private body than the miscellaneous assembly 

 of a London institution. Do not think that I am frightening 

 myself with any such bugbear as a Heartdisease, for I assure 

 you I give no thought to the matter, though I cannot help 

 feeling, from the frequency and pain of my palpitations, that 

 I have a nervous affection there. I have no idea of its 

 calling me awa'y early, though I shall probably not hve to 

 your age in the ordinary course of things, but even if I did, 

 I should not alter my opinion or be alarmed, knowing by 

 experience that I could, though ill-prepared, face my end 



