iv.] CHOICE OF A PROFESSION, 1833. 91 



give you a history of my progress, because that is not to 

 my present point, except in so far as it illustrates the 

 system of education under which I was brought up. 

 My eldest brother died in 1826, whilst we were abroad, 

 and my poor father never had a day of health after. I 

 need not dwell on the two years that he lingered, 

 rendering himself more and more beloved by his family 

 till it pleased God to remove him just eleven years ago. 

 I need not say that we lived secluded these two years 

 and for long after, living entirely at Colinton. For 

 myself, being quite keen on my studiep, I never missed 

 society, and but for the catastrophe of my father's death, 

 I could spend those meditative years with delight again. 

 At twenty-one I knew almost nobody, and was oppressed 

 by dyspepsia, against which I had never been warned, 

 and had carried the seeds from infancy. Though I had 

 long enjoyed independent thought, I had but little 

 notion of independent action, and felt an awkward- 

 ness and diffidence in my dealings with people in 

 general, ami women in particular, of which no doubt 

 you have remarked the traces. This diffidence did not 

 extend to intellectual society, and I often wonder at 



If when I think of the memorable epoch in 1831, 

 when just twenty-two, and furnished with a great 

 number of letters, chiefly from Dr. Brewster and others, 

 whose acquaintance I had made for myself, 1 made my 



it in London, Oxford, and Cambridge. 1 wonder, 



I . .- the self-poeaeasioi) J then felt, at the in- 



16 enjoyment I felt at bein<j al>le to communicate 



on subjects bottled up in me so many years, and I was 



immediately a new man. 1 had thus, you will see, a 



world of thought and of int* llectual intercourse opened 



up to me which became my world : my familiar world 



\ imt alten-d. My friends, and they soon proved 



themselves really Hich, v. .rally double my 



Whilst my, n<. ' limiher WBfl iimviiiv;- at the >ame 



time in tin- U-t circles in Lnndmi, I had im wish to 



il iv.jiiiivd many y< ars nf the intel- 



n:il society into which I had literally \\mkcd m\ 



