326 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VIII. 



were, one might soberly say, so much of his very life told out. 

 Almost invariably were they followed by sharp illnesses, yet 

 not the less was he willing to undertake the duty again and 

 again. With truthful reverence we may apply to him the pro- 

 phet's experience, " His word was in my heart as a burning fire 

 shut up in my bones ; I was weary with forbearing, and I could 

 not stay." 



After his death the following reference to a published lecture 

 was given in writing to his sister : " While glancing at the 

 paper, I remembered the very sound of many of the expressions 

 as I heard them, and how vividly I can recall his look while 

 lecturing those times I went with you, and the great clear pro- 

 file cast on the wall by the electric light ! All the brilliance 

 and the beauty of the mind, with its thoughts, we can't, in 

 looking back, feel them past ; only the cough after he got into 

 the carriage oh, Jessie ! what a contrast it made at the time, 

 and now, that part is over for ever." One of our gifted men of 

 letters, Dr. W. B. Hodgson, in a letter of January 1860, speaks 

 of the " element of childlike wonder which animated George 

 Wilson, and which he so well knew how to transfuse into 

 others, or rather, which he transfused into others without know- 

 ing how, and by the mere force of sympathy. In listening to 

 Wilson, you not only increased your knowledge, your store of 

 facts, but you were delighted with the beauty and harmony of 

 their relations and interdependence ; and few indeed are the 

 sermons that can leave so deep an impression of reverence for 

 Him whose works science interprets, as did the simplest of 

 George Wilson's compositions. There was such a charming 

 play of fancy about his lectures, adorning but never obscuring 

 the accuracy of his observations, or the close method of his ar- 

 rangement. ... He was one of the most learned of our men of 

 science, at once the most practical and the most poetical, the 

 most attractive lecturer and effective teacher ; and never did a 

 purer, gentler, kindlier being exist in human shape." 



"In his hands," Professor Macdougall 1 remarks, "every sub- 

 ject was felt to become not intelligible only, or even interest! ng, 

 but almost enchanting. The value and attractions of know 



1 Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. 



