LITERARY AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 397 



found innocent repose in the neighborhood of a tin box of barley- 

 sugar, excellent as when bought " at my old man's." Here and 

 there, in the interstices between books, were stuffed what appeared 

 to be dingy, crumpled bits of paper — these were bank-notes, his 

 class fees — not unfrequently, for want of a purse, thrust to the bot- 

 tom of an old worsted stocking, when not honored by a place in 

 the book-case. I am certain he very rarely counted over the fees 

 taken from his students. He never looked at or touched money in 

 the usual way ; he very often forgot where he put it ; saving when 

 these stocking banks were his humor ; no one, for its own sake, or 

 for his own purposes, ever regarded riches with such perfect indif- 

 ference. He was like the old patriarch whose simple desires were 

 comprehended in these words : — " If God will be with me, and keep 

 me in the way I am to go, and give me bread to eat, and raiment 

 to put on" — other thought of wealth he had not. And so there he 

 sat, in the majesty of unaffected dignity, surrounded by a homeli- 

 ness that still left him a type of the finest gentleman ; courteous to 

 all, easy and unembarrassed in address, wearing his neglige with as 

 much grace as a courtier his lace and plumes, nor leaving other im- 

 pression than that which goodness makes on minds ready to ac- 

 knowledge superiority ; seeing there " the elements so mixed in 

 him, that nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was 

 a man." 



" Writing for Blackwood" were words that bore no pleasant sig- 

 nificance to my ears in the days of childhood. Well do I remember, 

 when living long ago in Ann Street, going to school with my sister 

 Margaret, that, on our return from it, the first question eagerly put 

 by us to the servant as she opened the door was, " Is papa busy 

 to-day ; is he writing for Blackwood ?" If the inquiry was answered 

 in the affirmative, then off went our shoes, and Ave crept up stairs 

 like mice. I believe, generally speaking, there never was so quiet a 

 nursery as ours. Thus " writing for Blackwood" found little favor 

 in our eyes, and the grim old visage of Geordie Buchanan met with 

 very rough treatment from our hands. If, as sometimes happened, 

 a number of the Magazine found its way to the nursery, it never 

 failed to be tossed from floor to ceiling, and back again, until tat- 

 tered to our hearts' content. In due time we came to appreciate 

 better the value of these labors, when we learned what love and 

 duty there was in them ; and a good lesson of endurance and 



