Page:Memoir of Dr James Alexander (1795-1863), Wooler by his son-in-law, Sir John Struthers, 1863.pdf/9

 powers were high, and he abounded in anecdote and quotation. Although the district was a rural one, there were not wanting in it men of education who met round his table, and I have there heard discussions and conversations which could not be easily surpassed. He took pains himself to assist in the education of his children, getting up early in the mornings for this purpose, and as they grew up the evenings were spent with them as often as possible in family readings. In matters of religion, while it may be said to have pervaded his whole life and character, he had a strong dislike not only to cant but to the too common use of religious phraseology or the unwise obtrusion of sacred things. With earnest convictions of his own he combined a wise and tolerant charity for those who differed from him, and there was nothing ascetic in his view of religion. Ecclesiatically he adhered to the Scotch form in which he had been educated, but he attached no importance to such distinctions. In politics he took an intelligent interest and was an active Liberal, and that in the days when Liberalism did not pay. I understand that he rather suffered for this in his early years at the hands of those who came afterwards to trust him as their physician and friend.

One intention of his life remained unaccomplished. He had been urged by friends who knew his literary ability, and the large store of experience of human nature which he possessed, to write a book of recollections, embracing his experiences of life as a country surgeon. There can be no doubt that that would have proved a work full of interest alike to the professional and to the general reader. He had accepted the idea, and thought over the plans, but the end came before it had been even begun.

He had always said that he would die in harness, and so the event proved. He had paid a visit to Edinburgh during the meeting of the Social Science Association early in October 1863, and though to outward appearance the same as ever, full of interest in what was going on, he felt some breathlessness, and complained sometimes of violent pain across the chest. He was carefully examined by his friend Dr W. T. Gairdner, who could detect no disease beyond a more than usually atheromatous state of the arteries, and warned him against violent exercise of any kind. The night before the apopleptic seizure which carried him off, he experienced severely the pain across the chest, but was so well in the morning that he preferred riding to driving. An hour after he left home he was found lying on the roadside insensible. On being