nd must naturally be accepted with scruples, because they are so apt
to agglomerate round any person noted for the failing they indicate.

According to Dr. Rogers, however, Smith, during his residence in
Kirkcaldy, went out one Sunday morning in his dressing-gown to walk in
the garden, but once in the garden he went on to the path leading to
the turnpike road, and then to the road itself, along which he
continued in a condition of reverie till he reached Dunfermline,
fifteen miles distant, just as the bells were sounding and the people
were proceeding to church. The strange sound of the bells was the
first thing that roused the philosopher from the meditation in which
he was immersed.[227] The story is very open to criticism, but if
correct it points to sleepless nights and an incapacity to get a
subject out of the head, due to over-application.

The persistency of his occupation with his book, according to Robert
Chambers in his _Picture of Scotland_, left a mark on the wall of his
study which remained there till the room was repainted shortly before
that author wrote of it in 1827. Chambers says that it was Smith's
habit to compose _standing_, and to dictate to an amanuensis. He
usually stood with his back to the fire, and unconsciously in the
process of thought used to make his head vibrate, or rather, rub
sidewise against the wall above the chimney-piece. His head being
dressed, in the ordinary style of that period, with pomatum, could not
fail to make a mark on the wall.

M'Culloch says Smith dictated the _Wealth of Nations_ but did not
dictate the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_. Whether he had any external
ground for making this assertion I cannot tell, and, apart from such,
the probability would seem to be that if he dictated his lectures in
Edinburgh to an amanuensis, as seems probable, as well as his _Wealth
of Nations_, he would have done the same with his _Theory_. But
M'Culloch professes to see internal evidences of this difference of
manual method in the different style of the respective works. Moore
met M'Culloch one evening at Longman's, and they were discussing
writers who were in the habit of dictating as they composed. One of
the party said the habit of dictating always bred a diffuse style, and
M'Culloch supported this view by the example of Adam Smith, whose
_Wealth of Nations_, he said, was very diffuse because it had been
dictated, while his _Theory_, which was not dictated, was admirable in
style