I 



PHYSICAL DISTASTE FOE LECTUEING 195 



with more calmness than I should a miscellaneous assembly 

 of students. ... 



My dear Grandfather, — Your kindness has tempted 

 me to lay my heart open in a way I have done to no other 

 person. What I say here is not the result of a month's or 

 a year's opinion, but of the experience of the greater part 

 of my lifetime — I would not for the world that my Father 

 or Mother knew that I had ever been to a Medical man 

 about myself, which I have done both before my voyage 

 and after my return, and received a very similar verdict 

 which, though it contained nothing to alarm me, was 

 sufficient to prove that I need not expect ever to attain a 

 freedom in public delivery. 



Pray do not hint on this subject in your letter here, it 

 would only vex and do no good. I think my father rather 

 inclines to keep me here, and though 1 do not want to be a 

 burthen to him, I hope I am not altogether useless. My 

 aim is not, however, to live always in this house, if I could 

 only get some situation elsewhere. That some opening 

 will come I cannot doubt, in the meantime my income is 

 not much under £300 a year as long as this work lasts. 



■ Hotel de Londres, 



Rue des petits Augustins, Paris : 

 February 5, 1845. 



My dear Grandfather, — I cannot let this post go with- 

 out a letter, however short, to tell you that I have accepted 

 the office of Lecturer for Graham, unconditionally for 

 itself and its consequences. Though it is an expensive 

 procedure, I would prefer commencing as assistant without 

 the onus of being the Professor ; as being more advantageous 

 towards so young a lecturer and one so unfitted for lecturing 

 as I shall at first be. I shall hope to get over my nervous- 

 ness in time. There appears no doubt of my future success, 

 when a candidate for the chair, in the meantime I only do 

 a kind office for my poor friend, without emolument and 

 indeed with great expense to some one or other, for he says 

 that he has nothing whatever to give to the assistant. I 

 hope he will not ask me to live in his house, which I should 

 most decidedly refuse to do. 



However little suited to my taste and my habits a Scotch 

 Professorship is, and however much I shall regret giving up 



