236 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. V. 



" Of business I have nothing to tell things are as they were. 

 I have been foiled in another attempt to get something to do, 

 and am writing away at electrical lectures. 



" The weather here has been of the finest. Our sparrows, like 

 yours, have put off their flannels, morning gowns, and slippers, 

 and walk about in innocent nakedness, to enjoy the sunshine 

 and pick up the crumbs. There is plenty of sunshine going ; 

 no rain for a month ; but the supply of crumbs is rather scarce 

 here as with you. I have found it more than once befitting my 

 complexion to wear Raphael-like hair ; it saves a sixpence. 

 And I can now understand your delight in finding in an unknown 

 hole in your waistcoat, an unsuspected coin. I collect pennies 

 together, and hide them in a corner for letters ; and except in 

 the article of tobacco, I am a very economical man. As regards 

 that latter necessary, indeed, as it only costs threepence half- 

 penny an ounce, I do not upbraid myself much for it ; the less 

 that I have found a decent woman who gives me a pipe in to 

 the bargain. Except a visit to the Exhibition, to which I treated 

 myself, I arn innocent of expenses, which I need to be, seeing I 

 am already in debt." 



" M April 1840. 



"We received your welcome letter this morning, telling of 

 your exceeding business, and freely admitting the propriety of 

 your not writing us. I am about, as the voice or oracle of the 

 household, to send you what comfort I can in the shape of a 

 letter, all the comfort, I mean, that a kind letter from a brother 

 can give, whatever its subject be. Had I known how very busy 

 you were, I should have thought twice before I sent you such ;i 

 shameful affair as that epistle you got this morning was. But, 

 in truth, mother did not put the idea of writing into my head 

 till late in the day, when the available hours were mostly past, 

 and I had to scrawl away after dinner, when half my energies 

 were away on duty at the central citadel of the stomach, helping 

 to digest an indigestible Scotch mess. In these circumstances, 

 spite of fuming away at my pipe, the brain was in a minority, 

 and the house being counted, so few idea-members were at their 

 places, that the business had to be abandoned, especially as the 



