sion of medicine. Of this period he has left a chronicle which
is at once too long and too short.

All lives are equally interesting if only we are in possession of all
the facts. Places like Oxford and Cambridge have been made interesting
because the people who live in them are in the habit of writing, and
always write about each other. Family letters have little interest
even for the family itself, if they consist merely of a recital of the
trivial events of the day. They are prized for the unusual and for the
sentiment they contain. Diaries also are dull unless they deal with
selected incidents; and selection is the essence of every art. Few
events have any interest in themselves, but any event can be made
interesting by the pictorial or literary art.

When he writes to his mother, that, as he was coming out of the
college, an Irish setter pressed a cold nose against his hand, that is
interesting because it is unusual. If he tells us that a professor took
him by the arm, there is no interest in that to her or to any one else.
For that reason the ample letters and diaries which cover these years
need not detain us long. There is in them little selection, little
art--too much professor and too little dog.

It is, of course, the business of the essayist to select; but in the
present case there is little to choose. He tells of invitations to
dinner, accepted, evaded, or refused; but he does not always tell who
were there, what he thought of them, or what they had to eat. Dinner
at the Adami's,--supper at Ruttan's,--a night with Owen,--tea at the
Reford's,--theatre with the Hickson's,--a reception at the Angus's,--or
a dance at the Allan's,--these events would all be quite meaningless
without an exposition of the social life of Montreal, which is too large
a matter to undertake, alluring as the task would be. Even then, one
would be giving one's own impressions and not his.

Wherever he lived he was a social figure. When he sat at table the
dinner was never dull. The entertainment he offered was not missed by
the dullest intelligence. His contribution was merely "stories", and
these stories in endless succession were told in a spirit of frank fun.
They were not illustrative, admonitory, or hortatory. They were just
amusing, and always fresh. This gift he acquired from his mother, who
had that rare charm of mimicry without mockery, and caricature without
malice. In all his own letters there is not an unkind comment or t