194 EDINBURGH 
To Dawson Turner 
January 16, 1845. 
As to lecturing in London, there is at present no opening 
for it, nor should I like it except it was surely profitable. 
You do not know, nor do I like to tell my Parents, how wholly 
unfitted I am to be a Lecturer, constitutionally in particular. 
I am really nervous to a degree, and though I joined debating 
societies on purpose and studied speeches and stood up too 
to deliver them, I never could get two sentences on — I have 
earnestly endeavoured to conquer this, but without avail. 
I have consulted medical men, who tell me I have irritabihty 
in the action of the heart, which some have pronounced a 
slight disease of that organ ; and this I know well, that I 
could never even stand up before my fellow scholars to say 
my lesson at school or college without violent palpitation. 
You know me too well to think me a coward, or, still less, 
to accuse me of affectation, but this I do certainly think, 
that I am naturally unfitted for any situation calling for a 
public exhibition of myself. My case is not as if I never 
had to farse or construe before a body of fellow mortals, for 
surely if this feeling was ever to be overcome, it would have 
been in eight years of college-life and with my efforts at 
debating, where I have always had to sit down in shame 
and confusion, however carefully I had conned my speech. 
This, and this alone, has led me always to hope that I should 
pick up some situation where hard work and good manners 
were all that should be required of me, though in leaving 
the public path I should not so soon rise into notoriety. 
Of course I should forego all this dislike, or, as I believe,- 
physical incapacity for lecturing, were anything so tempting 
as Edinbro' offered, and even then one's own students would 
form a more private body than the miscellaneous assembly 
of a London institution. Do not think that I am frightening 
myself with any such bugbear as a Heartdisease, for I assure 
you I give no thought to the matter, though I cannot help 
feeling, from the frequency and pain of my palpitations, that 
I have a nervous affection there. I have no idea of its 
calling me away, early, though I shall probably not live to 
your age in the ordinary course of things, but even if I did, 
I should not alter my opinion or be alarmed, knowing by 
experience that I could, though ill-prepared, face my end 
