As an eminent Dundonian divine, who wishes to remain anonymous,
remarks, it is a melancholy fact that men of genius have often been
prone to violent ebullitions of temper. He recalls the sad case of
MILTON, who, while he was dictating his _Areopagitica_, threw
an ink-horn at his daughter, "to the complete denigration of her
habiliments," as he himself described it. Yet MILTON was a man of
high character and replete with moral uplift. I remember that my old
master, Professor Cawker of Aberdeen, once told me that as a child
he was liable to fits of freakishness, in one of which he secreted
himself under the table during a dinner-party at his father's house
and sewed the dresses of the ladies together. The result, when they
rose to leave the room, was disastrous in the extreme. But Professor
Cawker, as I need hardly remind my readers, was a genial and
noble-hearted man. I presented him on his marriage with a set of
garnet studs. Ever after when I dined at his house he wore them.
Nothing was ever said between us, but we both knew, and I shall never
forget.