SOON after his return to Cambridge in February 1856 (after seeing his father comfortably established in Edinburgh), Maxwell heard from his old friend Professor Forbes that the Chair of Natural Philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen, was vacant, and he shortly afterwards became a candidate. He had never contemplated a life of entire leisure, but it may seem strange that Cambridge, where besides his lectureship he had various philanthropic interests, should not have afforded him a sufficient field for regular work. He foresaw that the Scotch appointment would please his father, and that the arrangement of session and vacation time would enable him to spend the whole summer uninterruptedly at Glenlair. Some expressions in his letters also seem to indicate that he rather shrank from the prospect of becoming a Cambridge “Don.” He had observed the narrowing tendencies of college life, and preferred the rubs of the world.
His letters to his father and others at this time sufficiently explain the course of his candidature, in which the point most deserving notice is the generous way in which he speaks of his rivals. While treating the whole matter with his usual grave irony, he seems to have conducted his part of it with considerable sagacity, and when he returned to Edinburgh about the middle of March everything was well in train. He had the pleasure of knowing that his father’s interest in the question was at least equal to his own, and that the old man had been roused by it to some return of his former vigour. But the end was near. After a few days spent in Edinburgh, the father and son went home to Glenlair, as they had planned—a matter of no small anxiety and difficulty. The short vacation had all but passed away, when, on Thursday the 2d of April, just before his son was to have returned to Cambridge, Mr. John Clerk Maxwell suddenly expired.
The outward change was not very great. Maxwell went up to Cambridge as usual. Glenlair was still his home. His interest in his own subjects was undiminished. His candidature for Aberdeen continued. But the personal loss to him was incalculable and irreparable. Their long daily companionship had been followed by a correspondence which was all but daily, by vacations spent together, and an uninterrupted interchange, whether present or absent, of thoughts and social interests, both light and grave. During the last six months it is true the old man had been failing, and, to outward observers, was considerably changed. But the change had only called out his son's affection into more active exercise, and had never checked the flow of communication by word or letter. What depth of feeling lay beneath Maxwell’s quiet demeanour at this time may be inferred from the poem written at Cambridge during that summer term, and put into my hands when we met afterwards at Glenlair. Some lines of it may be appropriately inserted here:—
Suck was James Clerk Maxwell during the “years of April blood.”
Letters, 1856.
To his Father.
Trin., 14th Feb. 1856.
Yesterday the Kay Club met at Hort’s. I took my great top there and spun it with coloured discs attached to it. I have been planning a form of top, which will have more variety of motion, but I am working out the theory, so that I will wait till I know the necessary dimensions before I settle the plan.
I told Willie (Cay) how I had hung up a bullet by a combination of threads.
I have drawn from theory the curves which it ought to describe, and when I set the bullet a-going over the proper curve, it traces it out over and over again as if it were doing a pre-ordained dance, and kept a steady eye on the line on the paper. I have enlarged my stock of models for solid geometry, made of coloured thread, stretched between two pasteboard ends.
From Professor J. D. Forbes.
Edinburgh, 13th Feb. 1856.
You may not perhaps have heard that Mr. Gray, Professor of Natural Philosophy, Marischal College, Aberdeen, is dead. He was a pleasing and energetic person, in the prime of life and health, a few months ago, when I saw him last.
I have no idea whether the situation would be any object to you; but I thought I would mention it, as I think it would be a pity were it not filled by a Scotchman, and you are the person who occurs to me as best fitted for it.
Do not imagine from my writing. that I have the smallest influence in the matter, or interest in it beyond the welfare of the Scottish Universities.
It is in the gift of the Crown. The Lord Advocate and Home Secretary are the parties to apply to. I am not acquainted with either.
In the Commissioners’ Report of 1830 the emoluments are stated at about £350. But they are not always to be depended upon.
Another point. I think you ought certainly to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. I shall be glad to propose you if you wish it.
To his Father.
Trin. Coll., 15th Feb. 1856.
Professor Forbes has written to me to say that the Professorship of Nat. Phil, at Marischal College, Aberdeen, is vacant by the death of Mr. Gray, and he inquires if I would apply for the situation, so I want to know what your notion or plan may be. For my own part, I think the sooner I get into regular work the better, and that the best way of getting into such work is to profess one’s readiness by applying for it.
The appointment lies with the Crown—that is, the Lord Advocate and Home Secretary. I suppose the correct thing to do is to send certificates of merit, signed by swells, to one or other of these officers.
I am going to ask about the method of the thing here, and Thacker has promised to get me the College Testimonials. If you see any one in Edinburgh that understands the sort of thing, could you pick up the outline of the process?
In all ordinary affairs political distinctions are supposed to weigh a great deal in Scotland. The English notion is that in pure and even in mixed mathematics politics are of little use, however much a knowledge of these sciences may promote the study of politics. As to Theology, I am not aware that the mathematicians, as a body, are guilty of any heresies, however some of them may have erred. But these are too mysterious subjects to furnish matter for calculation, so I may tell you that the reflecting stereoscope was finished yesterday, and looks well, and that I got a Devil made at the same time, which I play at the Gymnasium for relaxation and breathing time.
Forbes also suggests my joining the Royal Society.
Trin. Coll., 20th Feb. /56.
As far as writing (Testimonials) goes, there is a good deal, and if you believe the Testimonials you would think the Government had in their hands the triumph or downfall of education generally, according as they elected one or not.
However, wisdom is of many kinds, and I do not know which dwells with wise counsellors most, whether scientific, practical, political, or ecclesiastical. I hear there are candidates of all kinds relying on the predominance of one or other of these kinds of wisdom in the constitution of the Government.
I had a letter from Dr. Swan of Edinburgh, who is a candidate, asking me for my good opinion, which I gave him, so far as I had one. His printed papers are good, and I hear he is so himself. Maclennan is also a candidate. He has the qualification of making himself understood.
The results of this term are chiefly solid Geometry Lectures, stereoscopic pictures, and optical theorems. My lectures are to be on Rigid Dynamics and Astronomy next term, so I do not expect to be out of work by reason of Aberdeen, and I have plenty to get through in those subjects.
I have been making more stereoscopic curves for my lectures. I intend to select some and draw them very neat the size of the ordinary stereoscopic pictures, and write a description of them, and publish them as mathematical illustrations. I am going to do one now to illustrate the theory of contour lines in maps, and to show how the rivers must run, and where the lines of watershed must be.
From his Father.
22d Feby. 1856.
... I believe there is some salary, but fees and pupils, I think, cannot be very plenty. But if the postie be gotten, and prove not good, it can be given up; at any rate it occupies but half the year.
To his Father.
Trin. Coll., 12th March.
I was at the Working College to-day, working at decimal fractions. We are getting up a preparatory school for biggish boys to get up their preliminaries. We are also agitating in favour of early closing of shops. We have got the whole of the ironmongers, and all the shoemakers but one. The booksellers have done it some time. The Pitt Press keeps late hours, and is to be petitioned to shut up.
I have just written out an abstract of the second part of my paper on Faraday’s Lines of Force. I hope soon to write properly the paper of which it is an abstract. It is four weeks since I read it. I have done nothing in that way this term, but am just beginning to feel the electrical state come on again, and I hope to work it up well next term.
To Miss Cay.
Thursday Afternoon (3d April 1856.)
Dear Aunt—My father died to-day at twelve o’clock. He was sleepless and confused at night, but got up to breakfast. He saw Sandy a few minutes, and spoke rationally, then came into the drawing-room, and sat down on a chair for a few minutes to rest, and gave a short cry and never spoke again. We gave him ether for a little, but he could not swallow it. There was no warning, and apparently no pain. He expected it long, and described it so himself.
Do you think Uncle Robert could come and help a little? Tell Dr. Bell and other people. As it is, it is better than if it had been when I was away. He would not let me stay. I was to go to Cambridge on Friday.—Your aff. nephew,
J. C. Maxwell.
To Mrs. Blackburn of Killearn.
Glenlair, Thursday.
Dear Mrs. Blackburn—My father died suddenly to-day at 12 o’clock. He had been giving directions about the garden, and he said he would sit down and rest a little as usual. After a few minutes I asked him to lie down on the sofa, and he did not seem inclined to do so, and then I got him some ether, which had helped him before.
Before he could take any he had a slight struggle, and all was over. He hardly breathed afterwards.
He used often to talk to me about this, which has come at last, and he seemed fully to have made up his mind to it and to be prepared for it. His nights have sometimes been troubled, and last night I was with him the whole time trying to get him into a comfortable sleep, which did not come till light.
Otherwise we thought him better than when in Edin. He was very glad to get back here again.
I write to you that you may tell Mrs. Wedderburn. She ought to know, and I trust you will let her know, that not only was there no pain or distress about my father’s death, but he had often been speaking of how glad he was that he had got everything put in. order, and that he was home again.
I have written to ask my Uncle Robert Cay to come and help me in various things, as I am rather alone here. Of course I have written to Sir George, and will do so to other relatives as soon as I can.—Your affte. cousin,
James Clerk Maxwell.
From R. Dundas Cay, Esq., to Miss Cay, on Mr. John Clerk Maxwell’s Death.
Glenlair, 8th April 1856.
I think you will be glad to hear how we are getting on. It is very nice to see how natural James is. There is no affectation of more feeling than he really has, but he talks away upon his own subjects when not busy with the necessary preparations for to-morrow. Fortunately these occupy him a good deal, and as I think the business is of use to him, I only assist him and keep him talking. For instance, he made out all the list and directed the letters himself; I sat by and sealed them. Then my health requires a walk every day, so we go out and talk away very much as usual all the time, discussing the thinning of plantations, etc.
It is beautiful to see the feeling of all the people towards him, all thinking for him, and trying to assist him in every way, and he trying to carry on everything as before:—or when he wants to make a change, his anxiety, lest people should think he disapproves of the former customs. For instance, he wished to have the servants in for prayers every evening, instead of our reading by ourselves and reading to them separately; he was quite afraid they should think his doing so would look as if he thought it was wrong, it not having been done before.
To Lewis Campbell, Esq.
Trin. Coll., 22d April 1856.
I have had many things to attend to lately, which have kept me from writing to you. I am glad you wrote to me. I got a very kind letter from your mother and Bob, for which you must thank them meanwhile. My uncles, Robert and Albert, stayed with me till the 15th. That day I got a letter from Cambridge about college matters, and so I had to set to work at home more vigorously. George Wedderburn came in the afternoon, and we had two hard days’ work of various kinds.
On Friday he and I left Glenlair, and I got here on Saturday, and since yesterday have been lecturing.
All things are as if I had been up after a common vacation, and I see them all the same as they used to be. I have got back among chapels and halls and scholarships, and all the regular routine, with now and then some expression of condolence, which is all that strangers can or ought to afford. Neither they nor I enter on a subject which must be misunderstood; but it seems to me that while all the old subjects are as interesting to me as ever, I talk about them without understanding the men I talk to.
I have two or three stiff bits of work to get through this term here, and I hope to overtake them. When the term is over I must go home and pay diligent attention to everything there, so that I may learn what to do.
The first thing I must do is carry on my father’s work of personally superintending everything at home, and for doing this I have his regular accounts of what used to be done, and the memories of all the people, who tell me everything they know. As for my own pursuits, it was my father’s wish, and it is mine, that I should go on with them. We used to settle that what I ought to be engaged in was some occupation of teaching, admitting of long vacations for being at home; and when my father heard of the Aberdeen proposition he very much approved. I have not heard anything very lately, but I believe my name is not yet put out of question in the m a t h r m upper L Superscript normal d. Advocate’s book. If I get back to Glenlair I shall have the mark of my father’s work on everything I see. Much of them is still his, and I must be in some degree his steward to take care of them. I trust that the knowledge of his plans may be a guide to me, and never a constraint.
I am glad to hear of your [Oxford] W[orking Men’s] Coll[ege]. The preparatory school here has at once got from seventy to ninety scholars, all in earnest, and they have had to migrate to a larger schoolhouse.
We might consider of you and Bob and W. Cay coming for a quiet week or two to Glenlair in summer, if all goes well. Bob is with Willie and Charlie now touring.
I am getting a new top turned to show my class the motion of bodies of various forms about a fixed point. I expect to get very neat results from it, and agreeing with theory of course.
From Professor J. D. Forbes.
Bridge of Allan, 30th April 1856.
My dear Sir—I have just seen in the newspaper that you have been appointed to the Chair in Marischal College, on which I beg sincerely to congratulate you.
I regret much that it should at the same time be my lot to express my sympathy on the occasion of the recent death of your father. Such a loss occurs but once in a lifetime. In your case I am sure that it has the greatest alleviation which it admits of—I mean the consciousness that you have been an affectionate and dutiful son, and that your excellent conduct relieved your father’s mind from every shade of anxiety regarding you.—Believe me always, yours very sincerely,
James D. Forbes.
To B. B. Litchfield, Esq.
Trinity, 4th June 1856.
On Thurs. evening I take the North-western route to the North. I am busy looking over immense rubbish of papers, etc., for some things not to be burnt lie among much combustible matter, and some is soft and good for packing.
It is not pleasant to go down to live solitary, but it would not be pleasant to stay up either, when all one had to do lay elsewhere. The transition state from a man into a Don must come at last, and it must be painful, like gradual outrooting of nerves. When it is done there is no more pain, but occasional reminders from some suckers, tap-roots, or other remnants of the old nerves, just to show what was there and what might have been.
After his father’s death, Maxwell set himself anew to the tasks before him, with a mingled sense of loss and responsibility. One of his first duties was to apply himself to the management of his estate. He remained at Glenlair during most of the summer, only making a short excursion to Belfast on account of his cousin, William Cay, who, in accordance with his advice, was about to study Engineering under James Thomson, the brother of the Glasgow Professor. In the autumn, besides entertaining Charles Hope Cay, then a boy of fifteen, in his school holidays, he had various Cambridge friends to stay with him, as in former years.[191]
In November he began his work at Aberdeen. A Scotch Professor has one advantage over a College lecturer at Cambridge. If his students are less advanced, he has the entire direction of their work in his own department. It is left to him, apart from any prescribed system, to determine the order in which the parts of his subject shall be developed. His selection of topics is not dominated by the Final Examination. This peculiarity of his position was fully appreciated by Clerk Maxwell, whose experience of the course in Edinburgh under Forbes, gave him a “standpoint” from which to arrange his great fund of scientific acquirement in presenting it to his students.
Had Maxwell the qualities of a teacher? That he was not on the whole successful in oral communication is an impression too widespread to be contradicted without positive proof. Yet his letters bear sufficient evidence that in many respects he had a true vocation as an educator. The combination of keen sympathy with native authority and dignity, the intense interest in his subject, his endless power of taking trouble, his philanthropic enthusiasm, his critical study of mankind, his wide range of language and ideas, must have enabled him to make his mark as a public teacher, either at Aberdeen or Cambridge, if he had remained long enough at either place to wear off some superficial impediments, to adapt his methods to his environment, and to effect a thorough understanding with his pupils. As it was, his lectureship at Trinity lasted only for a year, and in the Scotch university he had only taught for three short sessions when Marischal College was on the point of being suppressed, and his reputation as a teacher was, under these circumstances, brought into comparison with that of others whose strength lay in exposition. To those who know what is implied in academical contests and controversies, the mention of these facts will be a sufficient caution against taking the lowest estimate of Maxwell’s teaching powers; and in after years “at Cambridge, where his class consisted of picked students,” we have good authority for saying “his lectures were listened to with an attention and pleasure similar to that with which his books are now read.” But at this earlier time there were certainly drawbacks, of which he himself was imperfectly conscious. Between his students’ ignorance and his vast knowledge, it was difficult to find a common measure. The advice which he once gave a friend whose duty it was to preach to a country congregation, “Why don’t you give it them thinner?” must often have been applicable to himself. Another hindrance lay in the very richness of his imagination, and the swiftness of his wit. The ideas with which his mind was teeming were perpetually intersecting, and their interferences, like those of the waves of light, made “dark bands” in the place of colour, to the unassisted eye. Illustrations of ignotum per ignotius, or of the abstruse by some unobserved property of the familiar, were multiplied with dazzling rapidity. Then the spirit of indirectness and paradox, though he was aware of its dangers, would often take possession of him against his will, and either from shyness, or momentary excitement, or the despair of making himself understood, would land him in “chaotic statements,” breaking off with some quirk of ironical humour. Add to this his occasional hesitation, his shortsightedness, and the long years of solitary intercourse with his father, who understood his meaning from the slightest hint and rather encouraged the family trick of “calling things out of their names,” and the list of hindrances is sufficiently formidable. But he was striving to overcome those of which he knew, and even if he had never done so completely, the weight of his character as well as the profundity of his genius, and his unvarying kindliness, must have won their way.
As marking his educational enthusiasm, it should not be forgotten here that he continued at Aberdeen the practice which he had commenced at Cambridge, of lecturing to working men. This was entirely voluntary, and for aught I know may have been regarded as a piece of eccentricity.
A trivial incident may be recorded as throwing light on his relations to professors and students severally. The professors had unlimited access to the library, and were in the habit of sometimes taking out a volume for the use of a friend. The students were only allowed two volumes at a time. Maxwell took out books for his students, and when checked for this by his colleagues explained that the students were his friends.
Amongst the human phenomena surrounding him, one which genuinely interested him was the religious “revival” which took place about that time in Scotland. His intercourse with evangelical friends in England had prepared him to sympathise with such “experiences,” and his Calvinistic. reading had familiarised him with the language used. And he was less jealous of Antinomianism than of a cut and dried morality.[192] But he was in no wise distracted from his professional duties by this or anything else, and although he referred to it in conversation, it has left no trace in any of his remaining letters which I have seen.
Letters, 1856-1857.
To R B. Litchfield, Esq.
Glenlair, 4th July 1856.
I have got some prisms and opticals from Edinbro’, and I am fitting up a compendious colour-machine capable of transportation. I have also my top for doing dynamics and several colour-diagrams, so that if I come to Cheltenham I shall not be empty handed. At the same time I should like to hear from you soon.
I have been giving a portion of time to Saturn’s Rings, which I find a stiff subject but curious, especially the case of the motion of a fluid ring. The very forces which would tend to divide the ring into great drops or satellites are made by the motion to keep the fluid in a uniform ring.
I find I get fonder of metaphysics and less of calculation continually, and my metaphysics are fast settling into the rigid high style, that is about ten times as far above Whewell as Mill is below him, or Comte or Macaulay below Mill, using above and below conventionally like up and down in Bradshaw.
Experiment furnishes us with the values of our arbitrary constants, but only suggests the form of the functions. Afterwards, when the form is not only recognised but understood scientifically, we find that it rests on precisely the same foundation as Euclid does, that is, it is simply the contradiction of an absurdity, out of which may we all get our legs at last!
To the Same.
Glenlair, 18th July 1856.
I can promise you milk and honey and mutton, with wind and water to match, a reasonable stock of natives of great diversity, and very unlike any natives I know elsewhere. I also expect a cousin[193] here, who carries a clear and active mind in a body ditto, and I hope to make them stick closer together by the material above stated.
To the Same.
Glenlair, 9th September 1856.
My only hope for Pomeroy is that he may keep his health; if that remains I think it quite presumptuous to interfere with him by hopes or otherwise, for I would rather be interfered with by him (from which I am safe) than bother a man who steers so well himself. You must remember that besides the clerical shell of respectability which is to be put on, there is sometimes a lay shell of ανηριθμον γελασμα, which has in some measure to be put off, or perhaps more truly drawn in, for no one that has once known can ever forget that instead of two views there are three, good, bad, and grotesque; and tho’ all things are full of jokes, that does not hinder them from being quite full, or even more so, of more solemn matters. It also strikes me that if we were to compare notes, the thing we would most differ about would be the notion we have of the “standpoint” (see religious prints, passim) of the men whom we know in common.
My own notion is that you see him where he ought to be according to principle, and I see him where he acts, as if he was, that is, in the position which would naturally produce his actual life. But I find on comparing notes with other people that a man always shows himself up differently according to the man who is with him. In fact I do it myself, so I must now show up the fishing side for the benefit of Charlie (Cay).
To C. J. Monro, Esq.
Glenlair, 14th October 1856.
... During September I had Lushington, Maclennan, and two cousins “Cay” here. Now I am writing a solemn address or manifesto to the Natural Philosophers of the North,[194] which I am afraid I must reinforce with coffee and anchovies, and a roaring hot fire and spread coat-tails to make it all natural. By the way, I have proved that if there be nine coefficients of magnetic induction, perpetual motion will set in, and a small crystalline sphere will inevitably destroy the universe by increasing all velocities till the friction brings all nature into a state of incandescence, or as H—— would say, Terrestrial all in Chaos shall exhibit efflorescence.
To Miss Cay.
129 Union Street, Aberdeen,
27th February 1857.
You are right about my being two letters in debt to you. I proceed to “post you up” to the most recent epoch. The weather is mild and sunny, but the winter has been severe. The planets Jupiter and Venus have been neighbours; Saturn, Mars, and Mercury also visible.
To descend to particulars. I find everything going on very smoothly. I never passed an equal time with less trouble. I have plenty of work but no vexation as yet. In fact, I am beginning to fear that I must get into some scrape just to put an end to my complacency.
I will begin with the College. We are having public meetings and caucuses (that is, the students are) for the election of Lord Hector. Lord Stanley won’t come. Lord Elgin is doubtful. They seem to prefer Elgin to Layard. We are to have a commission consisting of Col. Mure, Cosmo Innes, and Stirling of Keir.
To-morrow I hold my second general examination on the subject we have done. I hope that my men of science won’t have their heads turned with politics. I have all the squibs regularly presented to me. They are not very good.
I have had 13 special examinations, and the two last have been the best answered of any. I send you my paper for to-morrow to give it to Bob Campbell with my profoundest esteem.
We have been at the theory of Heat and the Steam Engine this month, and on Monday we begin Optics. I have a volunteer class who have been thro’ astronomy, and we are now at high Optics. Tuesday week I give a lecture to operatives, etc., on the Eye. I have just been getting cods’ and bullocks’ eyes, to refresh my memory and practise dissection. The size of the cod and the ox eye is nearly the same. As this was our last day of fluids, I finished off with a splendid fountain in the sunlight. We were not very wet.
Out of College I have made the most of my time in seeing the natives. I used to walk every day with Professor Martin, but he was not well for some time, and we broke that habit. I get on better with people of more decision and less refinement, because they keep me in better order.
I have been keeping up friendly relations with the King’s College men, and they seem to be very friendly too. I have not received any rebukes yet from our men for so doing, but I find that the families of some of our professors have no dealings, and never had, with those of the King’s people. Theoretically we profess charity.
I had a glorious solitary walk to-day in Kincardineshire by the coast—black cliffs and white breakers. I took my second dip this season. I have found a splendid place, sheltered and safe, with gymnastics on a pole afterwards.
To the Rev. Lewis Campbell.
129 Union Street,
Aberdeen, 6th February 1857.
I got your letter[195] this morning at breakfast. I was somewhat seedy from being up late, but the perusal seemed to clear up everything, and I got on better with explaining the properties of elastic fluids than I had any reason to hope. So when I have doubts about the best mode of explaining anything, I must consult your letter, only it will not do for ever. I must have a new one now and then.
But I have not been so glad for long. Knowing you of old, I can see how things are by the way you write, and it is not always that similar announcements have given me similar satisfaction.
So I am glad that you do not know what “it” was. Avoid the neuter pronoun. “It” is unworthy of beasts that perish. “He” and “She” are for ever and ever. What the form of the pronoun may be after this I cannot tell, but I think more is meant in the distinction than is fully expressed in this life.
The Sadducees on the one side, and the ascetics on the other, point out the errors. Solomon, Prov. VIII., et passim, and Eph. VI., indicate matter of contemplation not unallied to action, which in good ground bears good fruit.
But as Urania remarked to Melpomene, I am but displaying the fact of my belonging to a lower stage in the scale of things, so I must for the present go down beside my native rill.
With respect to this “northern hermitage,” my cell is pretty commodious. In quitting the cenobitic cloister of Trinity for the howling wilderness of Union Street, I have not been made an anchoret. It is quite consistent with the eremitic life to modify one’s fast in friends’ houses 4 days per week or so.
One thing I am thankful for, though perhaps you will not believe it.—Up to the present time I have not even been tempted to mystify any one.
I have made out who were most likely to excite my passion that way, and I have avoided some, and broken the ice with others. I am glad B—— is not here; he would have ruined me. I once met him. I was as much astonished as he was at the chaotic statements I began to make. But as far as I can learn I have not been misunderstood in anything, and no one has heard a single oracle from my lips. Of course I do not mean that my class do not mistake my meaning sometimes. That is found out and remedied day by day. I speak of professors, ministers, doctors, advocates, matrons, maidens, and phenomenal existences (Chimeræ bombylantes in vacuo). We are through mechanics. I had an e x Superscript normal n on bookwork on 24th Jan. I got answers to all the questions and riders, though no one floored them all right. I have now to be brewing experiments on Heat, as well as determining the form of doctrine to be presented to the finite capacities of my men.
From C. J. Monro, Esq.
15th February 1857.
Have you seen the Pomeroy packet? It has much more in it than any travels I ever read. Lots of phenomena, human and otherwise, on the way out: especially the waves in a storm....
... They who deal in instruments of strings say that if you strike a certain note you hear certain others above. Is that because of the further terms in a Fourier’s integral, or because a sympathetic vibration is excited in certain other of the strings of the same instrument? I observe Weber says that it does not occur in wind instruments.
From Professor J. D. Forbes.
Edinburgh, 31st March 1857.
My dear Maxwell—I have often wished to ask you to tell me how your first session had turned out; consequently I was exceedingly glad to get your letter this Evening, and to find that you have not been disappointed in the results of the step to which you kindly say that my assistance was of some use. In what you say about the monotony of reiteration, I can confidently assure you that your conclusions are quite correct; certain precautions being taken which an active mind like yours is sure to fall upon.
We shall be delighted to see you at the R. S. on the 20th and to have your paper, which, if convenient, please to put into my hands, as a matter of form, when ready.
I have been at several meetings of the Society, but am feeling a little just now the effects of the season and the winter’s work, so I shall not be there on the 6th. On the whole, however, I have got through the winter well.
I shall like much to see your Top, of which I read the account in the Athenæum.
Have you observed in that same flippant paper for last Saturday an attack upon Faraday (as it seems to me) of a most presumptuous and ignorant kind? Though by no means as yet a convert to the views which Faraday maintains, yet I have so far a general appreciation of them as to believe that this conceited mathematician (some fifteenth Cambridge wrangler, I guess) is ignorant altogether of what Faraday wishes to prove.—Always yours sincerely,
James D. Forbes.
To C. J. Monro, Esq.
Glenlair, Springholm,
Dumfries, 20th May 1857.
I went to Old Aberdeen for Fourier, ... but I have forgotten what was to be discovered out of him.
The session went off smoothly enough. I had Sun all the beginning of optics, and worked off all the experimental part up to Fraunhofer’s lines, which were glorious to see with a water prism I have set up in the form of a cubical box, 5 inch side. The only things not generally done that I attempted last session were the undulatory medium made of bullets for advanced class, and Plateau’s experiments on a sphere of oil in a mixture of spirits and water of exactly its own density.
I succeeded very well with heat. The experiments on latent heat came out very accurate. That was my part, and the class could explain and work out the results better than I expected. Next year I intend to mix experimental physics with mechanics, devoting Tuesday and Thursday (what would Stokes say?) to the science of experimenting accurately.
I got a glorified top made at Aberdeen. I think you saw the wooden type at Cambridge. I have made it the occasion of a short screed on rotation coming out in the Roy. Soc., Edinburgh, presently.
Last week I brewed chlorophyll (as the chemists word it), a green liquor, which turns the invisible light red. My pot of all the winter spinach that remained was portentous, so I exhibited the optical effects, which were allowed to be worth the potful.
My last grind was the reduction of equations of colour which I made last year. The result was eminently satisfactory.
To R B. Litchfield, Esq.
Glenlair, 29th May 1857.
It is with a profound feeling of pity that I write to a denizen of Hare Court after participating in the blessings of this splendid day. We had just enough of cloud to prevent scorching, and the grass seemed to like to grow just as much as the beasts to eat it.
I have not had a mathematical idea for about a fortnight, when I wrote them all away to Prof. Thomson, and I have not got an answer yet with fresh ones. But I believe there is a department of mind conducted independent of consciousness, where things are fermented and decocted, so that when they are run off they come clear.
By the way, I found it useful at Aberdeen to tell the students what parts of the subject they were mt to remember, but to get up and forget at once as being rudimentary notions necessary to development, but requiring to be sloughed off before maturity.
I have no one with me but the domestics and dog. The valley seems deserted of its gentry; but we have one gentleman from Dumfriesshire, who is living in a hired house, and building with great magnificence an Episcopal Chapel in Castle-Douglas at his own expense. His own house is 20 miles off, a capital place, and this is perhaps the least Episcopal part of Scotland by reason of the memory of the dragoons. One old family of the Stewartry is of that persuasion, and most of the persecutors’ families are now Presbyterian and Whig, so that the congregation is but feeble.
It is very different at Aberdeen, where the Presbyterians persecuted far more than the Prelatists, so there I actually found a true Jacobite (female, I could not undertake to produce a male specimen), and there are three distinct Episcopal religions in Aberdeen, all pretty lively.
Can you tell me what the illustrated Tennyson is like? I shan’t see it till I go to Edinbro’. I don’t mean are the prints the best possible, or impervious to green spectacles; but are they nice diagrams as such things go? I should like to know before long about it, and whether the characters are of the Adamic type, and in reasonable condition, or pre-Rafaelitic in all but colour, and symbolising everything except the “Archetypal Skeleton” and the “Nature of Limbs.”
To C. J. Monro, Esq.
Glenlair, 5th June 1857.
I have not seen article seven, but I agree with your dissent from it entirely. On the vested interest principle, I think the men who intended to keep their fellowships by celibacy and ordination, and got them on that footing, should not be allowed to desert the virgin choir or neglect the priestly office, but on those principles should be allowed to live out their days, provided the whole amount of souls cured annually does not amount to £20 in the King’s Book. But my doctrine is that the various grades of College officers should be set on such a basis that, although chance lecturers might be sometimes chosen from among fresh fellows who are going away soon, the reliable assistant tutors, and those that have a plain calling that way, should after a few years be elected permanent officers of the College, and be tutors and deans in their time, and seniors also, with leave to marry, or rather, never prohibited or asked any questions on that head, and with leave to retire after so many years’ service as seniors. As for the men of the world, we should have a limited term of existence, and that independent of marriage or “parsonage.”
I saw a paragraph about the Female’ Artists Exhibition, and that Mrs. Hugh Blackburn had her Phaethon there.... She has done a very small picture of a haystack making, somewhat pre-Raphaelite in pose, but graceful withal, and such that the Moidart natives know every lass on the stack, whether seen behind or before. It was at the Edinburgh Academy of Painters.
I have done a screed of introduction to optics, and am at a sort of general summary of mechanical principles—doctrines relating to absolute and relative motion, analysis of the doctrine of Force into the smallest number of independent truths, theory of angular momentum and couples of work done, and vis viva, of actual and potential energy, with continual jaw on the doctrine of measurement by units all through.
To Rev. Lewis Campbell.
Glenlair, 7th August 1857.
I got your letter yesterday. I have oftener corresponded with people I expected to see than with those I had just left, so you must excuse my being rather more glad of it than if I had expected it. So you were better than I took you for; put that in the Logic-mill and grind it by “Conversion of Props.” Since you left I have been stirring up old correspondents. Poor W—— is “himself again,” with not many to care about him. He could not keep the A—— youths in order, and tried to get his authority backed by the big authorities. Then I suppose ensued a struggle between bodily weakness and hesitation, and mental sternness, stubbornness, and conscientiousness. The result probably was something severe in substance and mild in manner, or otherwise open to scorn from the youths.—I don’t know, but he has resigned his place. The youths then proceeded to express their penitence, and the authorities their regret. But he is now taking private pupils for that seat of ... learning, with not more friends and friendliness than of old. Not exactly. I am glad to hear of his knowing some mathematical men, actuaries, etc., and corresponding with them, and he is much more friendly by the post than by speech and face.
Yesterday we did our Castle-Douglas, and round by Greenlaw (Gordon, Esq.) Old Greenlaw impounded us at once, and embarked us in his boat down to Threave Castle, where some falsified antiquity, and some apart behind thick woven thorns bathed in the black water of Dee.
Then back to dinner with another party of chance visitors, songs both of the drawing-room and the quire and the cotton fields, and, to conclude, the unpremeditated hop.
The thing was not destitute of its humours. Old Greenlaw, heir of entail, with charters in his bedroom belonging to “Young Lochinvar” his forbear, and various Douglases, with rights of pit and gallows, and other curious privileges, sending all his people and visitors neck and heels in the very best direction for themselves. Son and daughter—mild, indefatigable, generally useful, doing (at home) exactly as they are bid. One gay litter(ar)y widow, charming never so wisely, with her hair about her ears and her elbows on her knees, on a low stool, talking Handel, or Ruskin, or Macaulay, or general pathos of unprotected female, passing off into criticism, witticism, pleasantry, unmitigated slang, sporting, and betting.
One little Episcopal chaplain, a Celt, whom I see often, but do not quite fathom—that is, I don’t know how far he respects and how far he is amused with his most patronising friends. One, mathematical teacher somewhere,—friend to chaplain. Voice. Mild, good fellow, like a grown up chorister, quite modest about everything except his voice—“What will they say in England,” “The Standard Bearer,” “Oh Susannah” (Chaplain leads chorus), “Courtin’ down in Tenessee” (Chaplain obligato), “Yet once more” (Handel), “But who may abide” (do.), and so on.
One good old widow lady, with manners. One son to normal d Superscript ring Baseline period, —sanguine temperament, open countenance, very much run to nose, brain inactive, probably fertile in military virtue. Two daughters to normal d Superscript ring Baseline period,—healthy, physical force girls, brains more developed owing to their not having escaped in the form of nose.
Now, conceive the Voice set down beside one of the physical forces, and trying to interest her in the capacities of different rooms for singing in, she being more benevolent and horsefleshy than technically musical,—the Chaplain entertaining the other with an account of his solitary life in his rooms,—old Greenlaw hospitably entreating the mannerly widow, and trying to get the Nose to talk.
The young widow fixed on Colin, and informed him that if Solomon were to reappear with all his wisdom, as well as his glory, he would yet have to learn the polka; and that the mode of feasting adopted by the Incas of Peru reminded her strongly of a custom prevalent among the Merovingian race of kings of France.
Living in the Pampas she regarded as an enviable lot, and she was at a loss to know the best mode of studying Euclid for the advantage of being able to teach a young brother of six (years old).
So we did not get home till near 11, and I had to be up at Glenlair at 5 this morning, the result of which is that at 12 to-night I am a little sleepy. Johnnie[196] can swim across the big pool at the Chapel, all by himself. His taste of water through the nose did him great good.... I have had some races after stones down the water in Loch Loan. I have kept the stone in sight a good way, but it has always beaten me. I’ll try some broken crockery to begin with.
I have succeeded in establishing the existence of an error in my Saturnian mazes, but I have not detected it yet. I have finished the first part of the Réligion Naturelle.[197] I am not a follower of those who believe they know what perfection must imply, and then make a deity to that pattern; but it is very well put, and carries one through, though if the book belongs to this age at all, it is eminently unlike most books of this century in England. But I only know one other book of French argument on the positive (not positiviste) side, and that also worked by “demonstration.” My notion is, that reason, taste, and conscience are the judges of all knowledge, pleasure, and action, and that they are the exponents not of a code, but of the unwritten law, which they reveal as they judge by it in presence of the facts. The facts must be witnessed to by the senses, and cross-examined by the intellect, and not unless everything is properly put on record and proved as fact, will any question of law be resolved at headquarters.
We are only going through our Lehrjahr in the knowledge of Perfection, and we may have a Wanderjahr to complete even after getting the first diploma, which is a certificate of having eyes to see the work, a conscience to feel after Right, and faith to believe in the Word, and to reach a station thereby where both those eyes and that conscience may be satisfied, or at least appeased. I do not think it is doing Reason, etc. any injustice to say that rough dead facts are the necessary basis on which to work in order to elicit the living truth, not from the facts, but either from the utterer of facts or the giver of Reason, which two are one, or Reason would never decipher facts.