CHAPTER VII. 



M.1RKIED LIFE. 



FORBES and his newly-married wife had not advanced 

 far on their wedding tour when they met with an 

 unlooked-for interruption. Scarcely had they reached 

 Bonn on their way up the Rhine, towards Switzerland, 

 when he was seized on July 20th with a severe fever, 

 which brought him very low, and detained him there till 

 the end of August. 



During this detention at Bonn, the first tidings of the 

 reception his book on Glaciers had met with at home 

 reached him in the shape of an article on it in the 

 Edinburgh Review, from the pen of Sir David Brewster. 

 That this article must have been a tonic to his spirit, 

 the following letter acknowledging it seems to show : 



To SIR DAVID BREWSTER. 



'GENEVA, August 3rd, 1844. 



* Having now first had the opportunity of reading 

 your article upon my volume of Travels in the Edin- 

 burgh Review, you will understand that it is impossible 

 for me to rest until I have expressed to you some small 

 share of the glowing feelings of pleasure with which I 

 read it. 



'During my short scientific career I have had yet 

 ample occasion to know the rarity of well-weighed praise, 

 the still greater rarity of well-timed support. Even the 

 best of us are apt to commence from friendship rather 



