Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/224



HERE is probably no name better known in the world of literature and learning, and certainly no figure more familiar in the streets of the Scotch capital, than John Stuart Blackie. There is always much combined curiosity and speculation regarding the life and habits of the man who has won fame within the limits of his own room and the surroundings of his family circle. It is from a distinctly homely point of view that I would talk about Professor Blackie. I spent some time with him in Edinburgh, and the sum and total of his characteristics seemed to be the very personification of refined culture, hearty and honest opinion, and unadulterated merriment. He will quote Plato one moment, dilate on the severity of the Scottish Sabbath the next, and then with lightning rapidity burst forth into singing an old Scotch ballad that sets one's heart beating considerably above the regulation rate. He shook hands with me, and then commenced to sing. He told me of his career, and sandwiched between his anecdotes snatches of song and pithy quotations; and so it went on all through the day. If he is worried for a sentence, or troubled for a rhyme, he walks about the room humming. "İ am a motive animal," he says. Sometimes he will sit down at the piano in the drawing-room at night, and the music tempts