390 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IX. 



which were worse even than the alternate and unequal rises 

 and falls of my youthful, wayward moods. The fires of my 

 heart, which once blazed, are all burned out, or deliberately 

 extinguished ; and without making vows, which would be foolish 

 and even sinful, I feel every day the circle of my imaginative 

 rovings shorten its diameter, and the thirst of my earlier ambi- 

 tion cease, although, like the thirst of a fever-patient, it has 

 never been slaked. All this is well, if the empty heart be filled 

 by Him who should from the first have been its occupant ; but 

 I have seen in others, and I fear in myself, an exchange of dis- 

 sipation of mind for unprofitable idleness, and this the more 

 that my mode of life carries me out of the busy current, in 

 which I formerly at least struggled to swim, and my health has 

 embayed me in a side pool, little influenced by the tide." 



The various effects of affliction he expresses to Daniel 

 Macmillan in these words : " The furnace of affliction puffs 

 away some men in black smoke, and hardens others into use- 

 less slags, and melts a few into clear glass. May it refine us 

 into gold seven times purified, ready to be fashioned into vessels 

 for the Master's use." Expecting a visit from this friend in 

 1850, he tells him, "I am reputed to be much graver than I 

 was, but when not in sickness or pain there are lots of fun in 

 me yet." After the visit was past, he laments the inability to 

 enjoy his friend's society, for " those two demons, rheumatism and 

 dyspepsia, had gone shares for my poor body, and I was ill at 

 ease. Night after night I spend in prosecuting a discovery, the 

 steps of which are, that I awake in pain on one side, and after 

 a period of vague uneasiness, say sleepily to myself, ' It is the 

 other side on which you sleep quietly/ and so I turn to the 

 other side, and after three minutes find out I was mistaken, and 

 that it was the other side, and the other follows the other, till 

 uneasy slumber puts an end to the unceasing revolutions. One 

 is poor company after such nights ; but I hope when I next see 

 you I shall be reasonably well." 



The humorous way in which his illnesses were frequently 

 mentioned, could not fail to provoke a smile even from the 

 most tenderly sympathizing. One or two specimens must 

 suffice. "I have not, like some unhappy people, an aching 



