"Time brings men into the most unexpected relationships. When the
Principal was plain Mr. Brewster, editor of the Edinburgh Cyclopaedia,
little dreaming that he should ever be Knight of Hanover and head
of the Northern Metropolitan University, Mr. Carlyle--just as little
dreaming that he should be the foremost man of letters of his day and
Lord Rector of the same University--was his contributor, writing for
said Cyclopaedia biographies of Montesquieu and other notables. And so
it came about that after years of separation and of honourable labour,
the old editor and contributor were brought together again--in new
aspects.
"The proceedings began by the conferring of the degree of LL.D. on Mr.
Erskine of Linlathen--an old friend of Mr. Carlyle's--on Professors
Huxley, Tyndall, and Ramsay, and on Dr. Rae, the Arctic explorer. That
done, amid a tempest of cheering and hats enthusiastically waved, Mr.
Carlyle, slipping off his Rectorial robe--which must have been a very
shirt of Nessus to him--advanced to the table and began to speak in
low, wavering, melancholy tones, which were in accordance with
the melancholy eyes, and in the Annandale accent, with which his
playfellows must have been familiar long ago.
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