CHAPTER IX
LIFE AT ST. ANDREWS
In an old-world town like St. Andrews the stately, old-world Moral Philosophy Professor must have seemed wonderfully in his place. There are men who, good-looking in youth, become 'ordinary-looking' in later years, but Ferrier's looks were not of such a kind. To the last—of course he was not an old man when he died—he preserved the same distinguished appearance that we are told marked him out from amongst his fellows while still a youth. The tall figure, clad in old-fashioned, well-cut coat and white duck trousers, the close-shaven face, and merry twinkle about the eye signifying a sense of humour which removed him far from anything which we associate with the name of pedant; the dignity, when dignity was required, and yet the sympathy always ready to be extended to the student, however far he was from taking up the point, if he were only trying his best to comprehend—all this made up to those who knew him, the man, the scholar, and the high-bred gentleman, which, in no ordinary or conventional sense, Professor Ferrier was. It is the personality which, when years have passed and individual traits have been forgotten, it is so difficult to reproduce. The personal attraction, the atmosphere of culture and chivalry, which was always felt to hang about the Professor, has not been forgotten
