Almost any day in half a century you might have seen Professor Blackie striding through Edinburgh as strong as an athlete, hearty as a young hunter. One morning I encountered him as he was beating eastward against half a gale, his cape flying, his cloud of white hair tossing against his big-brimmed, soft black hat, his cheeks rosy with the winter wind, and his kind eyes dancing with the delight he felt in exercise. He was eighty-five! I told him of reading somewhere that he loved to play the peripatetic philosopher. How he laughed! "Do they say that of me? Ho, ho, ho!" And then he trolled a "Hi-ti-rumty-tum", snatching an air, as his habit was, from a half-forgotten song, and ending with an exclamatory line of Greek. He looked like a prophet apostrophising the gods. "And they say I speak 'a confusion of tongues.' {80} Don't mind that," said he. "Greek, Latin, Gaelic, German, English--all are one to me. I borrow the words that come readiest for the thought. But Greek is the great language." And he strode down the hill. He was the most picturesque figure then living in Edinburgh, and many thought him the greatest man in the Scotland of those times. He was the "Grand Old Man" of that northern kingdom, and in vitality and spirits and capacity for work he was at eighty-five the youngest man I knew. He was packed with wisdom and overflowing with music and merriment. If he had not been so musical and so merry you might have called him Scotland incarnate. Doubtless he was that, with the music and merriment added. As for character, even Scotland never produced a nobler one, nor set it in a more imposing figure, or in a grander head. Scholar, poet, philosopher, teacher, learner, political writer, lover of the classics, strenuous believer in modern progress, he was sure that the world was never better than in his day, the Victorian day, and that it was growing better steadily. They were all optimists then. Lord Salisbury, when prime minister, added that they were all socialists. Professor Blackie drew the line at that. Perhaps Salisbury was quoting Harcourt. Visiting in Glasgow, I received one morning a note from him inviting me to lunch at his house in Edinburgh. On the lower, left-hand corner of the envelope he had written a line of Greek, as his custom was. This time it was an adjuration: {81} "Speak the truth in love." But who could speak of him in other words than those of love? In his note he had written "Come and talk." But he did all the talking. What an inspiring flood it was! No sooner was I in his hall than I heard, to my disappointment, the sound of what seemed lively conversation from an adjoining room. I had hoped to find him alone. The prospect of a luncheon party dampened my ardour. But when the maid conducted me to the presence, there sat the Scottish sage alone, declaiming a Gaelic poem. At least he told me it was Gaelic!