16 INTRODUCTION. 



questions of policy and business. Moreover he united in a 

 remarkable manner, the power of boldly and firmly asserting 

 and maintaining his own views, with a frank courteousness 

 which went far to disarm opponents. Accordingly he found 

 himself before long a member of various Syndicates, and indeed 

 a very great deal of his time was thus occupied, especially 

 with the Museums and Library Syndicates, in both of which 

 he took the liveliest interest. Besides these University duties 

 his time and energy were also at the service of his College. 

 In the preparation of the New Statutes, with which about this 

 time the College was much occupied, the Junior Fellows of the 

 College took a conspicuous share, and among these Junior 

 Fellows Balfour was perhaps the most active ; indeed he was 

 their leader, and he threw himself into the investigation of 

 the bearings and probable results of this and that proposed 

 new statute with as much zeal as if he were attacking some 

 morphological problem. 



While he was in the midst of these various labours, his 

 friends often feared for his strength, for though gradually im- 

 proving in health after his first year at Cambridge, he was not 

 robust, and from time to time he seemed on the point of break- 

 ing down. Still, hard as he was working, he was in reality 

 wisely careful of himself, and as he grew older, paid more and 

 more attention to his health, daily taking exercise in the form 

 either of bicycle rides or of lawn-tennis. Moreover he continued 

 to spend some part of his vacations in travel. Combining business 

 with pleasure, he made frequent visits to Germany and France, 

 and especially to Naples. The Christmas of 1876 7 he spent 

 in Greece, that of 1878 9 at Ragusa, where his old school-fellow 

 and friend Mr Arthur Evans was at that time residing, and the 

 appointment of his friend Kleinenberg to a Professorship at 

 Messina led to a journey there. Early in the long vacation of 

 1880, he went with his sister, Mrs H. Sidgwick, and her husband 

 to Switzerland, and was joined there for a short time by his friend 

 and pupil Adam Sedgwick. During this visit he took his first 

 lessons in Alpine climbing, making several excursions, some of 

 them difficult and dangerous ; and the love of mountaineering 

 laid so firm a hold upon him, that he returned to Switzerland 

 later on in the autumn of the same year, in company with his 



