72 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



at the time ; the opinions of most of us, including 

 myself, were of course largely guided by those of the 

 eminent mathematicians who were also members of 

 it, and by the result of private inquiries. The opinions 

 in favour of Sylvester prevailed ; Cayley received the 

 Medal a few years subsequently. 



Never was a man whose outer physique so belied 

 his powers as that of Cayley. There was something 

 eerie and uncanny in his ways, that inclined strangers 

 to pronounce him neither to be wholly sane nor gifted 

 with much intelligence, which was the very reverse 

 of the truth. Again, he appeared so frail as to be 

 incapable of ordinary physical work ; not a bit of it. 

 One morning he coached us as usual and dined early 

 with us at our usual hour. The next morning he did 

 the same, all just as before, but it afterwards transpired 

 that he had not been to bed at all in the meantime, but 

 had tramped all night through over the moors to and 

 about Loch Rannoch. As to memory, I found by 

 pure accident that he could repeat poetry by the yard 

 so to speak, and that of many kinds. His shy, 

 retiring ways did no justice whatever to his gigantic 

 mental capacity. 



I was, in a very humble way, able to compare the 

 work of various mathematical teachers with that of 

 Cayley. The latter moved his symbols in battalions, 

 along broad roads, careless of short cuts, and he 

 managed them with the easy command of a great 

 general. The very look of his papers, written in 

 firm handwriting and well proportioned lengths of line, 

 bore thoroughness and accuracy on their face. This 

 is not over fanciful. William Spottiswoode (1825- 

 18S3), himself a mathematician and President of the 



