202 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IV. 



few questions regarding the diseases for which legs are cut off. 

 And here am I waiting only for the mystic touch of the medi- 

 cating cap to stand forth to the world a physician ! What the 

 exact etiquette as to the assumption of the title before capping 

 is, I don't know, but as I have paid the fees, I make no scruple 

 of fully doctorating myself. Tell any ladies who are about to 

 write me, that any epistles addressed Mr. Geo. Wilson, will be 

 sent elsewhere." 



" MY DEAR SISTER MARY, When I last wrote you, I told you 

 I was a physician grub, a caterpillar eating of the coarse food 

 which suits the palate of an imperfect animal. I am now a 

 winged butterfly, that is, a PASSED PHYSICIAN ! (Three cheers 

 and a hurrah !) 



"Yesterday, between the hours of one and three o'clock, I 

 underwent the transformation, and emerged from my chrysalis 

 state, leaving my case (i.e., 21) behind me, and soared aloft 

 (that is, walked, I did not very well know how) into the blue 

 empyrean (i.e., along the pavement leading from the College to 

 Gayfield Square), in a mood of mind which only those who 

 have tasted of the horrors of an eternal caterpillarity (i.e., of 

 being a slicked doctor) hovering before them, can appreciate. 

 But I will close my wings, as yet unsoiled and unfeathered, and 

 come down to the earth, that is to say, I will remember that 

 ' this is my right hand, and that is my left,' that I am sitting in 

 an arm-chair, writing my dearly beloved sister Mary, who is 

 recovering her health among the breezes that float over the 

 rugged Ochils. 



" Well, then, in calm and sober seriousness, I am now an 

 M.D., with bright and beautiful visions of gold-headed canes 

 held out to my grasp ; of long, tapering fingers, put past muslin 

 curtains, that the doctor may feel the fair invalid's pulse ; of 

 tendered guineas, and received bank notes, besides honours 

 showered on my laurelled head ; and a tale of names added to 

 my Christian cognomen, sufficiently long to draw a saint from 

 heaven, if he got entangled among the A's, and B's, and Q's, 

 and S.S.S. 



" I arn overflowing with the milk of human kindness to every 



