Three generations

352 L'ENVOI
was a close observer of things both great and small,
sparing interest for the smallest. He was a lover
of music, from the works of the great composers to the
pathetic folk-songs of his native land. He sang these —
and
and
" The Lament for the Bonnie Earl o' Moray,"
" You'll tak' the high road,
And I'll tak' the low,
And I'll be in Scotland afore you,"
" Oh, wud I were where Gowdie rins !"
— in a manner which few with Scotch blood could have
resisted.
Like King Solomon with his Cedar of Lebanon and
his Hyssop from the Wall, Wallace had a rare know-
ledge of trees, flowers, and weeds, and was exceedingly
fond of them. He would walk miles to bring home
the earliest fritillary and water-lily — nay, the first
daisy or bit of speedwell.
His death by a lamentable bicycle accident was a huge
loss, not only to his colleagues, but to the University.
He made a deep and lasting impression on the finer
spirits among the students with whom he came into
contact, not only in his classroom, where, in spite of his
natural reticence, he could not help speaking as a seer
and a poet, as well as a philosopher, but among the
young men under his care whom he sought to know
and understand by welcoming them to his house.
Edward Caird, Master of Balliol, with a capacity
sufficiently profound to render him, in his day, the
acknowledged foremost explainer and illuminator of
Hegel, and thus qualified to originate and mould a
generation, not only of Scotch and English, but well-
nigh of European thinkers, while he himself was the