Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

10 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
mountain slopes, or encounter the pleasing risk of a
broken neck on the giant crags within reach of their
homes, were a still more frequent amusement ; and
the boys would roam the Pentlands over, or wonder
and wander in E-oslin Chapel and the leafy depths
of Hawthornden, as Scott did with his companions.
And they would read and read, and train themselves
in some more ambitious branch of knowledge for which
they had not had time at school, in the long evenings
of winter under the satisfied eyes of the mother,
thankful to see that her sons thought of something
better than play. We hear of no heroic attempts at
self- culture like that of an earlier bookseller of Edinburgh,
one of William Blackwood's predecessors, who
managed to attend the lectures in the College in the
intervals of his work, and of whom it is told that
" the printing-office in which he served being within
the precincts of the College, he generally continued
at work till he heard the bell ring for lecture, when
he immediately laid down his composing-stick, shifted
his coat, ran off with his note-book under his arm,
and returned to his work immediately after lecture."
Young Blackwood, with the strong, practical good
sense which distinguished him, was probably aware
intuitively that doses of knowledge taken in this
way, without leisure to digest and apply them, seldom
came to much ; whereas sound and complete under-
standing of a subject within the immediate range of
life and duty was the most solid foundation upon
which a man could build his life who meant to thrive
and do well, and to waste none of his energies on
unproductive labours.
We are not told, however, how he took that turn