SKETCH OF PROFESSOR CLIFFORD. 2 6 3 



many friends at Cambridge still stood him in good stead, and he 

 rapidly drew round him a large circle of warm friends and admirers, 

 among whom might be found almost all the best known names in sci- 

 ence or literature. This power of winding the affections of those who 

 were most worthy of friendship was due mainly to the peculiarly win- 

 ning gentleness and tenderness which characterized him, and made it 

 impossible to resist the charm of personal intercourse with him. Al- 

 though the nature of his opinions and his style of championing them 

 raised him countless enemies among those who knew him only from 

 his writings and lectures, yet there was no school of thought among 

 the members of which he did not possess some intimate friends. How- 

 ever widely their opinions might differ, it seemed to be quite impossi- 

 ble for any one to feel hostility toward him after becoming personally 

 acquainted with him. The versatility of his mind aided this greatly, 

 for it gave to his conversation a charm which was quite peculiar, and 

 which was felt alike by the most different classes of minds. There 

 was no subject from which he used not to draw apt illustrations or 

 expressive metaphors, which came clothed in language as quaint and 

 as original as it was appropriate. Whatever he discussed seemed to 

 become full of suggestiveness. These qualities gave great additional 

 value to his mathematical lectures. 



" With his style of teaching, the most valuable part of the instruc- 

 tion was the indirect effect of the lessons ; the actual matter in hand 

 was distinctly subordinate to the general training in the fundamental 

 ideas and principles of the subject which its discussion enabled him 

 to give. Everything was treated from the point of view in which it 

 least needed the aid of artificial methods and conventions, so that 

 its direct connection with the broad underlying principles common 

 to a whole class of subjects might be immediately perceived. This 

 dislike to artificial methods was almost a passion with him. He had 

 great faith in the superiority of this style of teaching, and always 

 maintained that it was the easiest as well as the best, a proposition to 

 which the experience of most teachers would not lead them to assent. 

 Perhaps it was his own special power of clear exposition which en- 

 abled him to succeed so well in thus handling his subjects in their most 

 general form, instead of starting from simple and particular cases, and 

 only taking up more general theorems after the simpler ones had been 

 mastered by his pupils ; but, whether or not this was the case, it is 

 certain that he had all the success in his teaching that he could desire. 



" It is a signal proof of the beauty of Professor Clifford's personal 

 character that, in forming an estimate of him, one should so naturally 

 and inevitably think first of his general qualities, and only in the sec- 

 ond place of his claims to fame as a mathematician. For it was in the 

 latter character that he first gained his great reputation, and it is 

 in that that his claims to genius are the strongest. No one of his 

 contemporaries ever approached Professor Clifford in his marvelous. 



