m-1-54. LITERARY WORK. 323 



CHAPTEE VIII. 



LECTURER AND AUTHOR. 



" Nullura quod tetigit non ornavit." 

 " He illuminated the Book of Nature as they did the Missals of old." 



IN the ten years that follow, we find the most important part 

 of George Wilson's life, so far as literary work is concerned. 

 The amount done seems more befitting one strong in body, than 

 the invalid on whose behalf our sympathies have been excited. 

 But one secret of his unresting diligence lay in the belief that 

 his life would be a short one. " Don't be surprised," he said to 

 a friend in 1845, "if any morning at breakfast you hear I am 

 gone." So with the shadow of death close at hand, he ever 

 worked as one whose days were numbered. At first this seems 

 a gloomy thought, but that to him it was far otherwise we cannot 

 doubt. " To none," he says, " is life so sweet as to those who 

 have lost all fear to die." 1 They who have large store of health 

 and strength are apt to lavish them thoughtlessly on various 

 objects, but such as he, husbanding their strength for work 

 alone, are frequently able to realize what their stronger brethren 

 only dream of. 



From this period to its close, his life was one long sacrifice 

 of pleasure to duty. While lecturing ten, eleven, or more 

 hours weekly, sometimes with pulse at 150, it was frequently 

 with torturing setons and open blister wounds; and every 

 holiday was eagerly seized for the application of similar 

 " heroic remedies," or " bosom friends," as he named them. 



1 ' Life of John Reid,' p. 264. 



