arently charmed life, as if he had the strength
of many men in him. Yet all the while he knew he was dying, his chief
anxiety being to conceal his state from those about him at home, to
whom the knowledge of his actual condition would have been inexpressibly
distressing. "I am cheerful among strangers," he said, "and try to live
day by day as a dying man." [1612]

He went on teaching as before--lecturing to the Architectural Institute
and to the School of Arts. One day, after a lecture before the latter
institute, he lay down to rest, and was shortly awakened by the rupture
of a bloodvessel, which occasioned him the loss of a considerable
quantity of blood. He did not experience the despair and agony that
Keats did on a like occasion; [1613] though he equally knew that the
messenger of death had come, and was waiting for him. He appeared at
the family meals as usual, and next day he lectured twice, punctually
fulfilling his engagements; but the exertion of speaking was followed by
a second attack of haemorrhage. He now became seriously ill, and it
was doubted whether he would survive the night. But he did survive;
and during his convalescence he was appointed to an important public
office--that of Director of the Scottish Industrial Museum, which
involved a great amount of labour, as well as lecturing, in his capacity
of Professor of Technology, which he held in connection with the office.

From this time forward, his "dear museum," as he called it, absorbed
all his surplus energies. While busily occupied in collecting models
and specimens for the museum, he filled up his odds-and-ends of time
in lecturing to Ragged Schools, Ragged Kirks, and Medical Missionary
Societies. He gave himself no rest, either of mind or body; and "to die
working" was the fate he envied. His mind would not give in, but
his poor body was forced to yield, and a severe attack of
haemorrhage--bleeding from both lungs and stomach [1614]--compelled him
to relax in his labours. "For a month, or some forty days," he wrote--"a
dreadful Lent--the mind has blown geographically from 'Araby the blest,'
but thermometrically from Iceland the accursed. I have been made a
prisoner of war, hit by an icicle in the lungs, and have shivered and
burned alternately for a large portion of the last month, and spat blood
till I grew pale with coughing. Now I am better, and to-morrow I give
my concluding lecture [16on Technology], thankful that I have contrived,
notwit