126 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



happy to say I don't know," he replied. The old man was 

 thunderstruck, and said he wished he knew all about his- 

 tory. " I should hate to have my head filled up with it, for 

 it would exclude better things." With porter, cabby, or 

 steamboat captain he was ever ready to do battle for the 

 cause of justice; but he deprecates the tendency to fault- 

 finding. " I used to visit Carlyle, but he has got so cross 

 and misanthropic, and raves so constantly about the 

 hor-r-rible state of things (imitating the Scotch accent) 

 that I couldn't stand it. I do not want to argue with him 

 and I will not listen to his nonsense, and so I stay away. 

 He is a prodigious talker. His tongue rattles inces- 

 santly; even his wife can't get a chance to say a word 

 till he goes out to smoke a pipe, when she starts up and 

 proves that nothing but her husband is able to extinguish 

 her." Carlyle's conversation, he said, was " one long 

 damn." 



When we stopped at the inn on Friday night, as the boat 

 left at six, and we could breakfast on board, we left word 

 to be awakened at half past five. Spencer hoped to sleep 

 a little, as he had not done so the night before in Edin- 

 burgh in consequence of the noise ; but we were all called 

 a quarter before five. I lay abed. Kitty dressed and went 

 down. There was a register on a side table in the dining- 

 room, where travellers offer any sentiment about the scen- 

 ery after their names, and often record praises of the hotel ; 

 and so the book is an object of display. When Kitty went 

 down she found written, as nearly as I can recollect, as fol- 

 lows : " Prof, and Mrs. Youmans, of America, and Herbert 

 Spencer, of London, taking lodgings for the night, left or- 

 ders to be called at half past five o'clock, but were called 

 three quarters of an hour earlier. This is part of a system 

 pursued in this region to induce travellers to take breakfast 

 before starting. I was imposed upon in the same way a few 

 nights ago at Oban." Kitty says Mr. Spencer was very an- 



