Horae subsecivae / by Dr. John Brown, with an introduction by Austin Dobson.

  • John Brown
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Horae subsecivae / by Dr. John Brown, with an introduction by Austin Dobson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    his interest was unbounded; and he had the keenest feeling for the lacrimae rerum—‘ the sense of tears in mortal things.’ But his exceptional insight perhaps found its most fertile source of amusement and wonder in the diagnosis of individual character. He de- lighted in probing below the surface,—in discovering the real man, whatever his position in life, under the wrappings of convention and prescription, carrying this curiosity everywhere, and only desisting when the inquiry was futile, or the subject worthless. One re- sult of this was that he had friends in every rank of the community, and all who knew him well during his long residence in Edinburgh, were warmly attached to him. A chat with Dr. Brown, in the familiar drawing-room at Rutland Street, where he sat surrounded by objects ‘ with a history—nearly all given to him, in one way or another, by someone who admired or loved him,’ was a thing to be remembered. The radiating centre of every company, he was never without his httle circle of affectionate devotees. ‘ “ I’ll tell Dr. Brown,” was the thought that came first to his friends on hearing anything genuine, pathetic, or queer, and the gleam as of sunhght that shone in his eyes and played round his sensitive mouth as he hstened acted as an inspira- tion, so that friends and even strangers he saw at their best, and their best was better than it would have been without him. They brought him of their treasure, figuratively and hterally too, for there was not a rare engraving, a copy of an old edition, a valuable auto- graph, anything that anyone in Edinburgh greatly prized, but sooner or later it found its way to Rutland Street, ‘‘ just that Dr. Brown might see it.” It seemed to mean more even to the owner himself when he had looked at it and enjoyed it ^ Dr. John Brown and his Sister Isabella: Outlines, by E. T. McLaren [‘Cecy’], 1890, p. 18,—a most delightful Memoir by an intimate, of which Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes—a kindred spirit to ‘ Rab’s Friend *—wrote ‘ I felt every word of it at my heart’s root.’
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