ng that he had "never yet read a book or conversed with a
companion without gaining information, instruction or amusement." Scott
has left on record that he never had met and conversed with a man who
could not tell him something he did not know. Watt seems to have
resembled Sir Walter, "who spoke to every man he met as if he were a
brother"--as indeed he was--one of the many fine traits of that noble,
wholesome character. These two foremost Scots, each supreme in his
sphere, seem to have had many social traits in common, and both that
fine faculty of attracting others.

The only "sport" of the youth was angling, "the most fitting practice
for quiet men and lovers of peace," the "Brothers of the Angle,"
according to Izaak Walton, "being mostly men of mild and gentle
disposition." From the ruder athletic games of the school he was
debarred, not being robust, and this was a constant source of morbid
misery to him, entailing as it did separation from the other boys. The
prosecution of his favorite geometry now occupied his thoughts and time,
and astronomy also became a fascinating study. Long hours were often
spent, lying on his back in a grove near his home, studying the stars by
night and the clouds by day.

Watt met his first irreparable loss in 1753, when his mother suddenly
died. The relations between them had been such as are only possible
between mother and son. Often had the mother said to her intimates that
she had been enabled to bear the loss of her daughter only by the love
and care of her dutiful son. Home was home no longer for Jamie, and we
are not surprised to find him leaving it soon after she who had been to
him the light and leading of his life had passed out of it.

Watt now reached his seventeenth year. His father's affairs were greatly
embarrassed. It was clearly seen that the two brothers, John and James,
had to rely for their support upon their own unaided efforts. John, the
elder, some time before this had taken to the sea and been shipwrecked,
leaving only James at home. Of course, there was no question as to the
career he would adopt. His fortune "lay at his fingers' ends," and
accordingly he resolved at once to qualify himself for the trade of a
mathematical instrument maker, the career which led him directly in the
pathway of mathematics and mechanical science, and enabled him to
gratify his unquenchable thirst for knowledge thereof.

Naturally Glasgow was decided upon as the proper place in