1855 EFFLORESCENT PIETISM 179 



JERMYN STKEET, Feb. 13, 1855. 



MY DEAR DTSTER . . . I will do my best to help 

 -to some alumni if the chance comes in my way, 



though, as you say, I don't like him. I can't help it. 

 I respect piety, and hope I have some after my own 

 fashion, but I have a profound prejudice against the* 

 efflorescent form of it I never yet found in people 

 thoroughly imbued with that pietism, the same notions 

 of honour and straight -forwardness that obtain among 



men of the world. It may be otherwise with , but 



I can't help my pagan prejudice. So don't judge harshly 

 of me thereanent. 



About Edinburgh, I have been going to write to you 

 for days past. I have decided on withdrawing from the 

 candidature, and have done so. In fact the more I 

 thought of it the less I liked it. They require nine 

 months' lectures some four or five times a week, which 

 would have thoroughly used me up, and completely put 

 a stop to anything like original work ; and then there 

 was a horrid museum to be arranged, work I don't care 

 about, and which would have involved an amount of 

 intriguing and heart-burning, and would have required 

 an amount of diplomacy to carry to a successful issue, 

 for which my temper and disposition are wholly un- 

 fitted. 



And then I felt above all things that it was for me 

 an imposture. Here have I been fighting and struggling 

 for years, sacrificing everything to be a man of science, 

 a genuine worker, and if I had obtained the Edinburgh 

 chair, I should have been in reality a mere pedagogue 

 and a man of science only in name. Such were my 

 notions, and if I hesitated at all and allowed myself to 

 become a candidate, it was only because I have other 

 interests to consult than my own. Intending to " range 

 myself" one of these days and become a respectable 

 member of society, I was bound to consider my material 



