“With yours I have Mr. Tayler’s letter. I do not write to him to-day. My only subject is thanks, and these are not to be measured in words—the strongest I can use; so at present give my respects and highest regards.”

Holy Trinity Vicarage,

Carlisle, 4th March 1882.

My dear Sir—You have asked me to send you some account of James Maxwell, as I remember him during the space of three years, 1852, 1853, and 1854. My first acquaintance with him was about February 1852. I was soon attracted by the frankness of his manner and the singular charm of his quaint and original remarks in conversation.

We undergraduates felt we had a very uncommon personage amongst us; but we did not then appreciate his rare powers. We had of course heard of the reputation which he had at Edinburgh.

But this acute mathematician, so addicted even then to original research, was among his friends simply the most genial and amusing of companions, the propounder of many a strange theory, the composer of not a few poetic jeux d’esprits.

Grave and hard-reading students shook their heads at his discursive talk and reading, and hinted that this kind of pursuits would never pay in the long run in the Mathematical Tripos.

I have sometimes watched his countenance in the lecture-room. It was quite a study—there was the look of a bright intellect, an entire concentration on the subject, and sometimes a slight smile on the fine expressive mouth, as some point came out clearly before him, or some amusing fancy flitted across his imagination. He used to profess a dislike to reproducing speculations from books, or hearing opinions quoted taken bodily from books.

Yet he read a good deal in other lines of study than natural philosophy. Sir Thomas Brown’s Religio Medici was one of his favourite books. Any such author, who propounded his speculations in a quaint, original manner was sure to be a favourite with him.

But I particularly remember his attraction to Sir Thomas Brown during the long vacation, when he was laid up with severe illness (a brain fever) in my dear uncle’s house in June 1853. He came to stay at Otley, near Ipswich, of which my uncle was the rector. For a few days he was tolerably well, then suddenly fell ill, probably through overwork for his third year college examination. It was on his recovery from that illness that I seemed to know him better than ever. It was then that my uncle’s conversation seemed to make such a deep impression on his mind. He had always been a regular attendant at the services of God’s house, and a regular communicant in our College Chapel. Also he had thought and read much on religious subjects. But at this time (as it appears from his own account of the matter) his religious views were greatly deepened and strengthened.

I must add that I spent some little time in the long vacation of 1854 with Maxwell at Glenlair. His father was then living, and it was touching to witness the perfect affection and confidence which subsisted between father and son: the joy and satisfaction and exulting pride which the father evidently felt in his son’s success and well-earned fame; and, on the other hand, the tender, thoughtful care and watchfulness which James Maxwell manifested towards his father.

Maxwell has indeed left a very bright memory and example. “We, his contemporaries at college, have seen in him high powers of mind and great capacity and original views, conjoined with deep humility before his God, reverent submission to His will, and hearty belief in the love and the atonement of that Divine Saviour who was his Portion and Comforter in trouble and sickness, and his exceeding great reward.—I remain, my dear sir, yours very truly,

G. W. H. Tayler,
Vicar of Trinity Church, Carlisle.

22 Old Square, Lincoln's Inn,
London, W.C., 6th January 1882.

I was in his year at Trinity, and knew him intimately, though our ways separated after I left Cambridge, and I scarcely ever saw him, except once or twice when he was Professor at King’s College, and later on only at very long intervals, on an occasional visit to the University.

There must be many of his quaint verses about, if one could lay hands on them, for Maxwell was constantly producing something of the sort, and bringing it round to his friends, with a sly chuckle at the humour, which, though his own, no one enjoyed more than himself.

I remember Maxwell coming to me one morning with a copy of verses beginning—“Gin a body meet a body Going through the air,” in which he had twisted the well-known song into a description of the laws of impact of solid bodies.

There was also a description which Maxwell wrote of some University ceremony, I forget what, in which somebody “went before,” and somebody “followed after,” and “in the midst were the wranglers playing with the symbols.”

These last words, however meant, were in fact a description of his own wonderful power. I remember one day in lecture, our lecturer had filled the black board three times with the investigation of some hard problem in Geometry of Three Dimensions, and was not at the end of it, when Maxwell came up with a question whether it would not come out geometrically, and showed how with a figure, and in a few lines, there was the solution at once.[166]

Maxwell was, I daresay you remember, very fond of a talk upon almost anything. He and I were pupils (at an enormous distance apart) of Hopkins, and I well recollect how, when I had been working the night before and all the morning at Hopkins's problems with little or no result, Maxwell would come in for a gossip, and talk on while I was wishing him far away, till at last, about half an hour or so before our meeting at Hopkins’s, he would say—“Well, I must go to old Hop’s problems;” and by the time we met there they were all done.

I remember Hopkins telling me, when speaking of Maxwell, either just before or just after his degree, “It is not possible for that man to think incorrectly on physical subjects;” and Hopkins, as you know, had had perhaps more experience of mathematical minds than any man of his time.

Of Maxwell’s geniality and kindness of heart you will have had many instances. Every one who knew him at Trinity can recall some kindness or some act of his which has left an ineffaceable impression of his goodness on the memory—for “good ” Maxwell was, in the best sense of the word.

Under date January 1. 1854 (Sunday evening), after saying I had been at tea at a friend’s rooms, and naming the men who were there, of whom Maxwell was one, there is this note:—

“Maxwell, as usual, showing himself acquainted with every subject upon which the conversation turned. I never met a man like him. I do believe there is not a single subject on which he cannot talk, and talk well too, displaying always the most curious and out-of-the-way information.”

He said that on entering the Senate-house for the first paper he felt his mind almost blank; but by and by his mental vision became preternaturally clear. And, on going out again, he was dizzy and staggering, and was some time in coming to himself.

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

8 King’s Parade, 10th Feb. 1852.

I was at Isaac Taylor’s to-night. His father has come to see him, a little, cold man, with a tremulous voice, who talks about the weather as if he were upon oath, but who can lift up his testimony against any unwarrantable statement. Taylor junr. and Maclennan were talking about associations of workmen, Christian socialism, and so forth. T. junr. approved of the system where each workman has a share in the firm. M. liked one master better than many.

T. senr. described the inducement to hard work among engineers at Manchester; the reward is not profit, but situation.

There are advantages in subordination, besides good direction, for it supplies an end to each man, external to himself. Activity requires Objectivity.—Do you ever read books written by women about women? I mean fictitious tales, illustrating Moral Anatomy, by disclosing all thoughts, motives, and secret sins, as if the authoress were a perjured confessor. There you find all the good thinking about themselves, and plotting self-improvement from a sincere regard to their own interest, while the bad are most disinterestedly plotting against or for others, as the case may be; but all are caged in and compelled to criticise one another till nothing is left, and you exclaim:—

No wonder people get hypochondriac if their souls are made to go through manœuvres before a mirror. Objectivity alone is favourable to the free circulation of the soul. But let the Object be real and not an Image of the mind’s own creating, for Idolatry is Subjectivity with respect to gods. Let a man feel that he is wide awake,—that he has something to do, which he has authority, power, and will to do, and is doing; but let him not cherish a consciousness of these things as if he had them at his command, but receive them thankfully and use them strenuously, and exchange them freely for other objects. He has then a happiness which may be increased in degree, but cannot be altered in kind.

To the Same.

8 King's Parade, 7th March 1852.

I have now nobody that I see too much of, though I have got several new acquaintances, and improved several old ones. I find nothing gives one greater inertia than knowing a good many men at a time, who do not know each other intimately. N.B.—Inertia, not = laziness, but mass; i.e. if one knows a man, he forms an idea of your character, and treats you accordingly. If one knows a company of men, they are strong in union, and overawe the individual. If one man only, we become mutual tyrants. If several independently, every one plays the part of Dr. Watt’s celebrated “Busy. Bee,” and by mixing according to every possible combination hit out the best results. Now you see I am theorising again and preaching as of old; but the fact is, I am always laying plans and preaching to myself till I seek for some one to whom I may disgorge without fear of an immediate reply. Now, my great plan, which was conceived of old, and quickens and kicks periodically, and is continually making itself more obtrusive, is a plan of Search and Recovery, or Revision and Correction, or Inquisition and Execution, etc. The Rule of the Plan is to let nothing be wilfully left unexamined. Nothing is to be holy ground consecrated to Stationary Faith, whether positive or negative. All fallow land is to be ploughed up, and a regular system of rotation followed. All creatures as agents or as patients are to be pressed into the service, which is never to be willingly suspended till nothing more remains to be done; i.e. till A.D. +proportional to. The part of the rule which respects self-improvement by means of others is:—Never hide anything, be it weed or no, nor seem to wish it hidden. So shall all men passing by pluck up the weeds and brandish them in your face, or at least display them for your inspection (especially if you make no secret of your intention to do likewise). (I speak not here literally of the case of those who revise each other’s faults every night, and quarrel before the month is out, but you did not so misunderstand me.) Again I assert the Right of Trespass on any plot of Holy Ground which any man has set apart (as the rustics did their Gude-man’s Rig) to the power of Darkness. Such places must be exorcised and desecrated till they become fruitful fields. Again, if the holder of such property refuse admission to the exorcist, he ipso facto admits that it is consecrated, and that he fears the power of Darkness. It may be that no such darkness really broods over the place, and that the man has got a habit of shutting his eyes in that field, which makes him think so.

How I am convinced that no one but a Christian can actually purge his land of these holy spots. Any one may profess that he has none, but something will sooner or later occur to every one to show him that part of his ground is not open to the public. Intrusions on this are resented, and so its existence is demonstrated. How, I do not say that no Christians have enclosed places of this sort. Many have a great deal, and every one has some. No one can be sure of all being open till all has been examined by competent persons, which is the work, as I said before, of eternity. But there are extensive and important tracts in the territory of the Scoffer, the Pantheist, the Quietist, Formalist, Dogmatist, Sensualist, and the rest, which are openly and solemnly Tabooed, as the Polynesians say, and are not to be spoken of without sacrilege.

Christianity—that is, the religion of the Bible—is the only scheme or form of belief which disavows any possessions on such a tenure. Here alone all is free. You may fly to the ends of the world and find no God but the Author of Salvation. You may search the Scriptures and not find a text to stop you in your explorations.

You may read all History and be compelled to wonder but not to doubt.

Compare the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with the God of the Prophets and the God of the Apostles, and however the Pantheist may contrast the God of Nature with the “Dark Hebrew God,” you will find them much liker each other than either like his.

The Old Testament and the Mosaic Law and Judaism are commonly supposed to be “Tabooed” by the orthodox. Sceptics pretend to have read them, and have found certain witty objections and composed several transcendental arguments against Hebrew O’ Clo’,” which too many of the orthodox unread admit, and shut up the subject as haunted. But a Candle is coming to drive out all Ghosts and Bugbears. Let us all follow the Light.

To Miss Cay.

8 King’s Parade, 23d March 1852.

I received yours (of the 18th I suppose) on Saturday, and began to muse on the difference of our modes of life: your sickness—my health; your kind dealings with neighbours—our utter independence of each other; you visit without seeing people—we see without visiting each other; you hear all about people’s families and domestic concerns—we do not, but we know exactly how everybody is up in his different subjects, and what are his favourite pursuits for the time.

The Little-go is now going on, so I am taking my Easter vacation at this time. I do nothing but the papers in the Senate-house, and then spend the day in walks and company, reading books of a pleasant but not too light kind, lest I should be disgusted with recreation.

I find myself quite at grass, and am sure that in 10 days I will be reading again as if I had been rusticated for a year.

I never did such a feat as get up at 5 in the morning. I get up at 6.30 for chapel in winter, and read in the day-time, but I have now begun my summer practice of sleeping in the mornings and reading at night, save when I get up on a fine day to take a walk in the morning, which makes me idle all day, and is sometimes agreeable.

I met old Isaac Taylor in his son’s rooms some time ago. He began by speaking of the weather in a serious way, and went on to his Manchester concerns,—effective motives to work, actual methods adopted, and so got into the merits of socialism, joint-stock workmen’s associations, and so forth, appearing all the while to say nothing, but quietly feed on the wisdom of the undergrads., as they enounced their opinions.

From his Father.

Glenlair, 10th April 1852.

The Ordnance Surveyors are doing Contour Lines. The line 250 feet above sea-level passes just in front of the Bees.[167]

Glenlair, 25th April 1852.

I ... congratulate you on your scholarship. You write of entering on the duties,—what are they? and what are the Privileges and Profits?

Glenlair, 12th May 1852.

Is M'Millan the Publisher of the Cambridge and Dublin, whereof William Thomson is editor? Have you sent him your prop, you were doing at Christmastime?

The gold-fever of Australian type prevails in these parts.

Glenlair, 19th May 1852.

[Prop, about resistance of sides and bottom of a meal-ark.]

... The meal, which may be called a fluid as much as a glacier.[168]

Query: Whether by putting bars beneath the bottom at points removed from the middle of the joist, the pressure would be more advantageously distributed?

Glenlair, 12th June 1852.

[Eve of James C. M.’s 21st birthday.]

I trust you will be as discreet when major as you have been while minor (Prov. X. 1).

Remember me to Tait. I am sorry I did not see him in Edinburgh to wish him joy of his honours.

Glenlair, 29th June 1852.

Did you take to the Geology at all? I suppose that the cliffs at Lowestoft are Tertiary, with plenty of fossils.

Glenlair, 9th Novr. 1852.

Nativity of the Prince of Wales.

Received yours of St. Guy and William.

The Cambridge Commission as you report of it will not affect you in any way.

What sort of thing is “College Declamation”? You say you have chosen The Scottish Covenanters. Do you take the part of Advocate or Apologist for them? or do you try the impartial historian? It would be difficult to give the Scots Prelates their due without offending some of the Order. During the Persecutions both the civil and ecclesiastical government of Scotland was getting ripe for the Revolution.

Glenlair, 11th Novr. 1852.

It has been said, Had there been two other Leightons instead of Sharp of St. Andrews and —— —— of Galloway, Episcopacy would have been securely established.

Glenlair, 2d Feb. 1853.

Aunty Jane was saying—a glass of wine daily,—port for preference.

Glenlair, 12th Feb. 1853.

... Mathematical Journal, to which you send props. What props.? The one about the Pendulum?

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

Trin. Coll., 20th Feb. 1853.

After Chapel I was at Litchfield’s, where he, Farrar, Pomeroy, and Blakiston, discussed eternal punishment from 8 to 12. Men fall into absurdity as soon as they have settled for themselves the question of the origin of evil. A man whose mind is “made up” on that subject is contradictory on every other; one day he says that the man that can be happy in such a world is a brute, and the next day that if a man is not happy here he is a moping fool. At last they assert the Cretan dilemma, that if a man says that man is ignorant and foolish, it was ignorant and foolish to say so. Solomon, they say, was used up when he wrote Ecclesiastes, and said “all is vanity” in a relative sense, having himself been so. Solomon describes the search after Happiness for its own sake and for the sake of possession. It is as if a strong man should collect into his house all the beauty of the world, and be condemned to look out of the window and marvel that no good thing was to be seen. “No man can eat his cake and have it.” I would add that what remains till to-morrow will stink.

As for evil being unripe good, I say nothing with respect to objective evil, except that it is a part of the universe which it may be the business of immortal man to search out for ever, and still see more beyond. We cannot understand it because it is relative, and relative to more than we know. But subjective evil is absolute; we are conscious of it as independent of external circumstances; its physical power is bounded by our finitude, bodily and mental, but within these its intensity is without measure. A bullet may be diverted from its course by the medium through which it passes, or it may take a wrong one owing to the unskilfulness of the shooter, or the intended victim may change his place; but all this depends, not on the will of the shooter, but on the ignorance of his mind, the weakness of his body, the resistance of inert matter, or the subsequent act of another agent; the bullet of the murderer may be turned aside to drive a nail, or what not, but his will is independent of all this, and may be judged at once without appeal.

From his Father.

Edinburgh, 21st February 1853.

The Halo and accompaniment of the 15th had been very curious. I never saw the appearance of Mock Suns.

Lord Cockburn went in plain dress to the fancy ball. When the crowd hissed him, he said he was the minister that was to marry them all!!

To Miss Cay.

Trin. Coll., 11th March 1853.

I was so much among the year that is now departed that it makes a great difference in my mode of life. I have been seeking among the other years for some one to keep me in order. It is easier to find instructive men than influential ones. I left off here last night to go to a man’s rooms where I met several others, who had gone a-prowling like me.... I have been reading Archdeacon Hare’s sermons, which are good.

Trin. Coll., Feast of St. Charles II.

Pomeroy’s mother and sister were up here lately. They used to be at Cheltenham. From them I learnt a good deal about the systematic and uncompromising mode of thinking and speaking which marks the great Irish Giant of Trinity. Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand prought[169] here yesterday about missions. He founded the Lady Margaret boat club at John’s, and got the boat to the head of the river. He was 2d Classic in 1831, and still he is too energetic for his curates to keep up with him in his own visitations about the South Pole. He made a great impression on the men here by his plainness of speech and absence of all cant, whether he spoke of the doctrines of Christianity or the history of Pitcairn’s Island. I have been reading various books, but few very entertaining. They are chiefly theories about things in general which take the fancies of men now-a-days. The only safe way to read them is to find out the facts first. With this precaution they are tolerably transparent. I have been attending Sir James Stephen’s lectures upon the causes of the first French Revolution. They are now done, so I look in upon Stokes’ dealing with light.

From his Father.

Edinburgh, 13th March 1853.

Ask Gedge to get you instructions to Brummagem workshops. View, if you can, armourers, gunmaking and gunproving—swordmaking and proving—Papier-maché and japanning—silver-plating by cementation and rolling—ditto, electrotype—Elkington’s Works—Brazier’s works, by founding and by striking up in dies—turning—spinning teapot bodies in white metal, etc.—making buttons of sorts, steel pens, needles, pins, and any sorts of small articles which are curiously done by subdivision of labour and by ingenious tools—glass of sorts is among the works of the place, and all kinds of foundry work—engine-making—tools and instruments (optical and philosophical) both coarse and fine. If you have had enough of the town lots of Birmingham, you could vary the recreation by viewing Kenilworth, Warwick, Leamington, Stratford-on-Avon, or suchlike.[170]

Glenlair, 29th April 1853.

You write (from King Edward’s School, Birmingham) about plans and visits. Freshman Tayler and two others innominate.

Glenlair, 12th May 1853.

What do you know of Henry Mackenzie? Do you find Frank to be clever, good, agreeable, and wise, which you state to be the desiderata for a friend?

Here is a Prop. anent fuel. What would be the amount of heat evolved in the combustion of a given weight of dry wood compared with the same weight of coal?

Glenlair, The Day after the Wedding,[171]
1st June(1853).

I have yours of the clay of the Restoration.... She (Maria Clerk) also wrote about the new phase of animal magnetism called table-Turning. Do you know about that?

Photography is also in the ascendant. You will, no doubt, be at Ipswich, I believe an ancient city, and hath old kirks and sundries worthy of notice. Is Otley towards the sea? Douking, etc.?

To Miss Cay.

Trin. Coll., 7th June 1853.

I have an engagement to go and visit a man in Suffolk, but the spare bed is at present occupied by the “celebrated Dr. Ting of America.” I only wait here for his departure. I spent to-day in a great sorting of papers and arranging of the same. Much is bequeathed to the bedmaker, and a number of duplicate examination papers are laid up to give to friends.

I intend to-morrow to get up early and make breakfast for all the men who are going down, wakening them in good time; then read Wordsworth’s Prelude till sleepy; then sally forth and see if all the colleges are shut up for the season; and then go and stroll in the fields and fraternise with the young frogs and old water-rats. In the evening, something not mathematical. Perhaps write a biographical sketch of Dr. Ting of America, of whom you know as much as I do. To-morrow evening, or next day, our list comes out. You will hear of it from the Robertsons if in town, or Mackenzie if not. I have done better papers than those of this examination; but if the examiners are not satisfied with them it is not my fault, for they are better than they have yet seen of mine. If any one asks how I am getting on in mathematics, say that I am busy arranging everything so as to be able to express all distinctly, so that examiners may be satisfied now and pupils edified hereafter. It is pleasant work and very strengthening, but not nearly finished.

From his Father.

Glenlair, 24th June 1853.

I have just received your letter and Mr. Tayler’s. You may be sure I am thankful to hear of your recovering, although not previously made anxious about the illness. I cannot but think of the fever fit you had in Edinburgh after an Academy exam., when we had settled to go to Melrose—that was in 1846.[172] Nothing can exceed the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Tayler, and I hope you will not need long nursing. If you are well and not much hindered, you can let me know more fully how you are getting on. Neither you nor Mr. Tayler mention the day you were taken ill. Mr. T.’s letter is dated 22d.

Glenlair, 28th June 1853.

I am most thankful and happy to hear of your convalescence through Mr. Tayler’s most kind and daily bulletins. I know not how sufficiently to thank Mr. and Mrs. Tayler for their very great kindness. I think you may be best to come home, when fit to travel, for further recreation.

Glenlair, 1st July 1853.

Mr. Tayler says, both truly and kindly, “You must be his guest till you are fit to travel.” ...

With yours I have Mr. Tayler’s letter of 28th. I do not write to him to-day. My only subject is thanks, and these are not to be measured in words—the strongest that I can use; so at present give my respects and highest regards.

To the Key. C. B. Tayler.

Trin. Coll., 8th July 1858.
Evening Post.

My dear Friend—Your letter was handed to me by the postman as I was taking a walk after morning chapel. As I was engaged then, I thought I might wait till the evening. I breakfasted with Macmillan the publisher, who has a man called Alexander Smith with him, who published a volume of poems in the beginning of the year which have been much read here, and, indeed, everywhere, for 3000 copies have been sold already. He is a designer of patterns for needlework, and he refuses to be made celebrated or to leave his trade. He speaks strong Glasgow, but without affectation, and is well-informed without the pretence of education, commonly so called. People would not expect from such a man a book in which the author seems to transfer all his own states of mind to the objects he sees. But he is young and may get wiser as he gets older. He sees and can tell of the beauty of things, but he connects them artificially. He may come to prefer the real and natural connection, and after that he may perhaps stir us all up by bringing before us real human objects of interest he has only dimly seen in the solitude of his youth.

I told you how I meant to go to Hopkins. He was not in. I had a talk with him on Sunday; he recommended light work for a while, and afterwards he would give me an opportunity of making up what I had lost by absence. Yesterday I did a paper of his on the Differential Calculus without fatigue, and as well as usual. Ask George how Mr. Hughes has arranged about Examinations. I will write to him soon, and send him a mass of papers in an open packet, to be taken twice a week, or not so often.

You dimly allude to the process of spoiling which has gone on during the last 2 years. I admit that people have been kind to me, and also that I have seen more variety than in other years; but I maintain that all the evil influences that I can trace have been internal and not external, you know what I mean—that I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me, and that if I escape, it is only by God’s grace helping me to get rid of myself, partially in science, more completely in society,—but not perfectly except by committing myself to God as the instrument of His will, not doubtfully, but in the certain hope that that Will will be plain enough at the proper time. Nevertheless, you see things from the outside directly, and I only by reflexion, so I hope that you will not tell me you have little fault to find with me, without finding that little and communicating it.

In the Athenæum of the 2d there is Faraday’s account of his experiments on Table-turning, proving mechanically that the table is moved by the unconscious pressure of the fingers of the people wishing it to move, and proving besides that Table-turners may be honest. The consequence has been that letters are being written to Faraday boastfully demanding explanations of this, that, and the other thing, as if Faraday had made a proclamation of Omniscience. Such is the fate of men who make real experiments in the popular occult sciences,—a fate very easy to be borne in silence and confidence by those who do not depend on popular opinion, or learned opinion either, but on the observation of Facts in rational combination. Our anti-scientific men here triumph over Faraday.

I hope the Rectory has flourished during the absence of you and Mrs. Tayler. I had got into habits with you of expecting things to happen, and if I wake at night I think the gruel is coming.

Macmillan was talking to me to-day about elementary books of natural science, and he had found the deficiency, but had a good report of “Philosophy in Sport made Science in Earnest,” which I spoke of with you. When I am settled I will put down some first principles and practicable experiments on Light for Charlie, who is to write to me and answer questions proposed; but this in good time.—Your affectionate friend,

J. C. Maxwell.

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

Trin. Coll., 14th July 1853.

You wrote just in time for your letter to reach me as I reached Cambridge. After examination I went to visit the Rev. C. B. Tayler (uncle to a Tayler whom I think you have seen under the name of Freshman, etc., and author of many tracts and other didactic works). We had little expedites, and walks, and things parochial and educational, and domesticity. I intended to return on the 18th June, but on the 17th I felt unwell, and took measures accordingly to be well again—i.e. went to bed, and made up my mind to recover. But it lasted more than a fortnight, during which time I was taken care of beyond expectation (not that I did not expect much before). When I was perfectly useless, and could not sit up without fainting, Mr. Tayler did everything for me in such a way that I had no fear of giving trouble. So did Mrs. Tayler; and the two nephews did all they could. So they kept me in great happiness all the time, and detained me till I was able to walk about, and got back strength. I returned on the 4th July.

The consequence of all this is that I correspond with Mr. Tayler, and have entered into bonds with the nephews, of all of whom more hereafter. Since I came here I have been attending Hop., but with his approval did not begin full swing. I am getting on, though, and the work is not grinding on the prepared brain.

I have been reading Villette by Currer Bell alias Miss Bronte. I think the authoress of Jane Eyre has not ceased to think and acquire principles since that work left her hands.

It is autobiographic in form. The ego is a personage of great self-knowledge and self-restraint, strength of principle and courage when roused, otherwise preferring the station of an onlooker.

Then there is an excellent prying, upright, Jesuitical, and successful French school directress; a fiery, finical, physiognomic professor, priestridden, but taking his own way in benevolence as in other things, etc. etc.

Faraday’s experiments on Table-turning, and the answers of provoked believers and the state of opinion generally, show what the state of the public mind is with respect to the principles of natural science. The law of gravitation and the wonderful effects of the electric fluid are things which you can ascertain by asking any man or woman not deprived by penury or exclusiveness of ordinary information. But they believe them just as they believe history, because it is in books and is not doubted. So that facts in natural science are believed on account of the number of witnesses, as they ought! I believe that tables are turned; yea! and by an unknown force called, if you please, the vital force, acting, as believers say, thro’ the fingers. But how does it affect the table? By the mechanical action of the sideward pressure of the fingers in the direction the table ought to go, as Faraday has shown. At this last statement the Turners recoil.

To R. B. Litchfield, Esq.

Coniston, 23d August 1853.

I came here with Campbell of Trin. Hall to meet his brother and another Oxford man called Christie.[173] We are all in a house[174] just above the lake, recreating ourselves and reading a little. Pomeroy is off to Ireland. I have seen a good deal of him, and we have read “at the same time successively” Vestiges of Creation and Maurice’s Theological Essays. Both have excited thought and talk.... I was down after the Mug[175] with Tayler’s uncle in Suffolk, and was taken in there. I was there made acquainted with the peculiar constitution of a well-regulated family, consisting entirely of nephews and nieces, and educated entirely by the uncle and aunt. There was plenty of willing obedience, but little diligence: much mutual trust, and little self-reliance. They did not strike out for themselves in different lines, according to age, sex, and disposition, but each so excessively sympathised (bonâ fide, of course) with the rest, that one could not be surprised at hearing any one take part in criticising his own action.

In such a case some would recommend “a little whole—some neglect.” I would suggest something like the scheme of self-emancipation for slaves. Let each member of the family be allowed some little province of thought, work, or study, which is not to be too much enquired into or sympathised with or encouraged by the rest, and let the limits of this be enlarged till he has a wide, free field of independent action, which increases the resources of the family so much the more as it is peculiarly his own.

I see daily more and more reason to believe that the study of the “dark sciences” is one which will repay investigation. I think that what is called the proneness to superstition in the present day is much more significant than some make it. The prevalence of a misdirected tendency proves the misdirection of a prevalent tendency. It is the nature and object of this tendency that calls for examination.

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

Glenlair, 15th September 1853.

I see that Principal Jelf is going to “have up” Maurice for heresy published in his Theological Essays. The consequence will probably be that some others unconnected with Maurice will be set upon, and will perhaps join with him in self-defence, or at least be associated with him in popular opinion.

If the row becomes general it will be the controversy of the day. They have no firm and dogmatic statements to grapple with, but they will soon make them. All the ordinary disputes have been revivals of the letter of old contests. Here we have the very spirit of all reformations; an attempt must be made to find what is requisite to a Christian system, and whether the “variables” of such a system ought to remain constant, as they were at some arbitrary epoch (that of sect-founders, Fathers, General Councils, Reformers, etc.), and not rather to be trusted to the true and approved Christians of every age.

But he that is misty let him be misty still, and the same for him that is shallow; but let him that is active not mar his activity by “tearing his neighbours in their slime,” or by ascending into the thick mist and walking with “Death and Morning on the silver horns.”

From His Father.

Glenlair, 10th October 1853.

I have set up the rain-gauge in the middle of the garden at the crossing of the gooseberry bushes at the Camomile. I think it will do.

As to changing your rooms—I suppose from that, you have settled to continue for a time at Cambridge and to look out for a fellowship.

Glenlair, 28th October 1853.

Be sure to keep a long way within your powers of working, and then you may do well whatever you undertake.

Glenlair, 13th November 1853.

Your letter was chiefly a dissertation on the election of Examinators; the names were all strange to me, except our old friend Charles Mackenzie.

To Miss Cay.

Trin. Coll., 12th November 1853.

I am in a regular state of health though not a very regular state of reading, for I hold that it is a pernicious practice to read when one is not inclined for it. So I read occasionally for a week and then miss a few days, always remembering to do whatsoever College and Hopkins prescribe to be done, and avoiding anything more. Allan Stewart was up a week ago to be made a bye Fellow of Peterhouse, so you may congratulate him when you see him. He is to be in Edinburgh this winter. Frank Mackenzie is up, and seems pretty well. He tells me that he does not sit up late; but as I have not the management of his candles I do not know what that means with him. I have not been up after twelve for a long time except on Saturdays when I am not reading.... You will have heard how the Council of King’s College have sat upon Professor Maurice and intend to turn him out of the college. So there are pamphlets and replies on the meaning of the word “Eternal,” and broadsides of the Record on the side of the attack. I see that the Rev. Berkeley Addison is in trouble about the Scottish Reformation Society, for associating with non-episcopal clergymen.

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

Trin. Coll., 3d Dec. 1853.

... We have the usual amount of discussion here on labour parliaments, multiplicity of votes, Eternity and Maurice and Jelf, or the contest between those who think that there is a real depth to which thought must go, though words cannot well follow it, and those who maintain that which is not obvious to a man of sense, cannot be really connected with a religion which is not confined to deep thinkers, but professes to afford the highest principles to the simple. That is what most men discuss. Maurice has settled it for himself, believing that the things of which he treats do actually form the necessary thoughts of all men whether learned or no.

From his Father.

Glenlair, 16th December 1853.

I knew Thomas Erskine of Linlathen very well long ago. He and his mother and sisters lived in No. 30 Heriot Row. He came to the Bar in Edinburgh the year before me. He is related to George Dundas, and Stirlings, and Erskines, and many families we visited. For long he has lived at Linlathen, near Dundee, and is author of various religious books.

Your dissertation on the parties in the Church of England goes far beyond my knowledge. I would need an explanatory lecture first, and before I can follow the High, Broad, and Low, through their ramifications.