364 THE LIFE OF JAMES I). FORBES. [CHJLP. 



enjoy them. When I think of my state in these very rooms 

 four years ago, when you were with us, I wonder to find 

 myself still here, and truly thank Go4 for having given me 

 the measure of health and enjoyment which I still possess. 

 How solemnly and imperceptibly the shade of life draws 

 round us ! how gradually we learn to think not indispen- 

 sable all that we once most coveted ! How the ranks of 

 friends and relatives are thinned, and how even people 

 that we have no personal regard for, when we meet them 

 casually on the streets, tell us by the singular change in 

 their appearance how the world is getting older, and how 

 we, too, must pass through change to the unchange- 

 able/ 



With Dr. Symonds Forbes henceforth kept up an affec- 

 tionate intercourse by visits and by letters. In him he 

 found not only a skilful physician and a devoted friend, 

 but one who could enter into all his scientific interests 

 with the sympathy of an adept. 



In May 1856 he visited Dr. Symonds for a fortnight 

 at Clifton, and this visit Dr. Symonds returned by a visit 

 to Forbes and his family in the autumn of the same year 

 at a pleasant spot in the Perthshire highlands, where they 

 had this year chosen their summer abode. The village 

 of Pitlochrie, then much less frequented than now, com- 

 bined for Forbes many attractions not easily to be found 

 elsewhere in Scotland. Lying on the great Highland road, 

 just at the entrance to the Killiecrankie Pass, screened, 

 by the high mountain wall which flanks the Tummel 

 valley, from east and north winds, and surrounded on all 

 sides by romantic scenery, it had the especial advantage 

 of a mild and salubrious climate during the summer 

 months. To that stretch of Athole might with slight 

 change be applied those words of Shakspere : 



1 The climate's delicate, the air most sweet, 

 Fertile the vale, the mountains much surpassing 

 The common praise they bear.' 



Another great advantage which this neighbourhood 

 offered was the presence of a skilful and wise physician, 



