470 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. XI. 



behind in a state of anaesthesia, guaranteed to last for a fortnight. 

 The more pressing and clamorous I have brought with me, ami 

 am polishing off, beginning with your letter. 



" At the sea- water 1 trial I was asked a question, which I ad- 

 minister herewith to Lady May, with a view to test and strengthen 

 her intellectual agility, subtlety, and profundity. ' It being 

 admitted that the fresh water flows from mouths of rivers far 

 out into the sea, and is found floating fresh in the open ocean, 

 and you (G. W.) showing a manifest tendency to define a stream 

 of fresh water as a river, I (the cross [sometimes very cross] 

 examining counsel) ask you, if you call such mid-ocean fresh- 

 water a river, what are its banks ? ' The questioner, in this case 

 a good-tempered, very sharp fellow, thought he had me, and all 

 in court, as my German teacher used to say, 'pricked veil up 

 their ears/ I was totally unprepared for the question, but one 

 of the little turnkeys who keeps the door of a memory-cell 

 hastened to my help, and prompted by him, I replied, ' Lieu- 

 tenant Maury declares that the Gulf Stream is a river of hot 

 water flowing between banks of cold ; mine is a river of fresh 

 water flowing between banks of salt water/ The Court smiled 

 applause, and with a courteous glance from Advocate Crux, I 

 vanished from the witness-box. 



" In conclusion I may say, 

 Fresh-water won the day, 

 Which holds out the prospect of much better pay. 



"Besides the multitudinous labours referred to so modestly 

 on a previous page, I have to mention that I addressed five 

 copies of Colour- Blindness to the Millbank Street office. I hope 

 the commissioners will make ' Light' of paying the carriage. 



" You ask for my health. I was decidedly the better of my 

 visit to London. The stoppage of brain work ; the spectacle of 

 the great bee-hive, with all its drones and workers, honey- 

 makers and honey-eaters, its constitutional queen, and assault- 

 ing wasps, always immensely exhilarating to me ; the contact 

 with the great little men who rule the world ; the handling of 

 that most wonderful invention red tape, which, according as you 

 will, is so strong, that a Samson could not break a thread of it, 



i The question at issue was, ' What is salt and what is fresh water?' 



