Of himself we read with a grin of delight that "he never cared for the society of what are called good people" ... that "he herded always, while it was possible, with people younger than himself" ... that "his manners lagged behind his years. He was too much of the boy-man. The _toga virilis_ never sate gracefully on his shoulders." He is more honest about his weaknesses than any other man of a like fame. He was certainly not of the "unco' guid," which may have accounted partially for his dislike of Scotsmen, and he affected no indifferences. As a writer he matters just in so far as he felt "the difference of mankind--to an unhealthy excess. I can look with no indifferent eye upon things or persons. Whatever is, is to me a matter of taste or distaste.... I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices ... the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, antipathies." The hatred with which he views death shows us how completely a lover of life he was: "I am not content to pass away 'like a weaver's shuttle.' Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity, and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes and the sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacles here. I am content to stand still, at the age to which I am arrived.... I do not want ... to drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave. Any alteration, on this earth of mine ... puzzles and discomposes me ... a new state of being staggers me. Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fireside conversations, and innocent vanities, and jests, and _irony itself_--do these things go out with Life?"