o get a perfect collection of animal and human skulls. All this,
however, was rather an accidental outbreak of exuberant intellectual
activity than serious and well-directed study. He was full of the vague
and morbid aspirations of youth.

As for me [he writes to his elder brother], I am pining
after change, I am thirsting for excitement. When I
compare what I might be with what I shall be, what I
might do with what I shall do, I am ready to curse myself
with vexation. 'Why had I, who am so low, a taste
so high?' I know you are rather of a more peaceful
and quiet temper of mind than I, but I am much mistaken,
if you have not much of the same desire for some
kind of life more suited to man's lofty passions and his
glorious destiny. How can one bear to know how much
is to be seen and learned, and yet sit down content without
ransacking every corner of the earth for knowledge
and wonder and beauty? And after all, what is picking
a few skulls (the occupation which gives me the greatest
pleasure now), when compared with gaining an intimate
and practical acquaintance with all the varieties of man,
all the varying phases of his character, all the peculiarities
of his ever-changing situations?'[2]

[Footnote 2: August 28, 1828]

We may smile at the youthful rhetoric, as the writer proceeds to
describe how shameful it would be to remain inactive in the sight of
exertion, to be satisfied with ignorance when in full view of the temple
of knowledge, and so forth. But it is the language of a generous ardour
for pure aims, and not the commoner ambition for the glittering prizes
of life. This disinterested preference remained with Greg from the
beginning to the end.

William Greg's truest delight at this time lay in his affectionate and
happy intercourse with his brother Samuel. There were three elder
brothers. One of them died comparatively young, but Robert and John were
eminently successful in the affairs of life; the former of them
represented Manchester; they both lived to be octogenarians, and both
left behind them the beneficent traces of long years of intelligent and
conscientious achievement. In Samuel Greg an interesting, clear, and
earnest intelligence was united to the finest natural piety of
character. Enough remains to show the impression that Samuel Greg made
even on those who were not bound to him by the ties of domestic
affection. The posthumous memorials of him disclose a na