PHYSICAL DISTASTE FOE LECTUEING 195 
with more calmness than I should a miscellaneous assembly 
of students. . . . 
My dear Grandfather, — Your kindness has tempted 
me to lay my heart open in a way I have done to no other 
person. What I say here is not the result of a month's or 
a year's opinion, but of the experience of the greater part 
of my lifetime — I would not for the world that my Father 
or Mother knew that I had ever been to a Medical man 
about myself, which I have done both before my voyage 
and after my return, and received a very similar verdict 
which, though it contained nothing to alarm me, was 
sufficient to prove that I need not expect ever to attain a 
freedom in public delivery. 
Pray do not hint on this subject in your letter here, it 
would only vex and do no good. I think my father rather 
inclines to keep me here, and though 1 do not want to be a 
burthen to him, I hope I am not altogether useless. My 
aim is not, however, to Hve always in this house, if I could 
only get sonie situation elsewhere. That some opening 
will come I cannot doubt, in the meantime my income is 
not much under £300 a year as long as this work lasts. 
Hotel de Londres, 
Rue des petits Augustins, Paris : 
February 5, 1845. 
My dear Grandfather, — I cannot let this post go with- 
out a letter, however short, to tell you that I have accepted 
the office of Lecturer for Graham, unconditionally for 
itself and its consequences. Though it is an expensive 
procedure, 1 would prefer commencing as assistant without 
the onus of being the Professor ; as being more advantageous 
towards so young a lecturer and one so unfitted for lecturing 
as I shall at first be. I shall hope to get over my nervous- 
ness in time. There appears no doubt of my future success, 
when a candidate for the chair, in the meantime I only do 
a kind office for my poor friend, without emolument and 
indeed with great expense to some one or other, for he says 
that he has nothing whatever to give to the assistant. I 
hope he will not ask me to live in his house, which I should 
most decidedly refuse to do. 
However little suited to my taste and my habits a Scotch 
Professorship is, and however much I shall regret giving up 
