38 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



is dated January 15, 1900. There is only one later printed statement by 

 him the preface to the seventh edition of Tait and Steele's Dynamics of 

 a Particle. 



The great physical and mental powers of the man were gradually 

 beginning to fail. The vigour of his long stride was not what it had been. 

 Yet in the keenness of ear and eye there was no abatement. Far beyond 

 the years at which the great majority of normal-sighted men are forced to 

 use spectacles or glasses, Tait was able to read his newspaper without artificial 

 aid. Latterly, in reading an unfamiliar hand-writing he was occasionally 

 compelled to hold it at the extreme stretch of his long arms ; still he could 

 read it a very rare feat for a man of seventy. 



During the spring and summer of 1900 he carried on his University 

 work and his Secretarial duties at the Royal Society. He never failed to be 

 present at the Council Meetings ; but the general meetings of the Society saw 

 less and less of him. 



He and his family took their usual summer holiday at St Andrews, whose 

 links in every hole and "hazard" were full of the memories of his son Freddie. 

 But alas, the shadow of death had chilled these golden memories ; and it was 

 no surprise to his friends to learn that Tait returned to Edinburgh in the 

 autumn none the better of his summer rest. 



As he drew on his gown on the opening day of the session he confessed 

 that for the first time in his experience he felt no desire to meet his new 

 class. He was resolved in his own mind to complete the century at least in 

 harness ; but the task was too great for his waning strength. For nearly 

 two months he carried on his lectures, to the great anxiety of all who knew 

 and loved him best. On December n, 1900, the anniversary of the 

 Magersfontein disaster, he left the University, never again to pass within 

 its portals. 



He was indeed very ill : yet he himself never desponded, but spoke 

 cheerily of looking in at College some day before the Christmas holidays, just 

 to be able to say that he had completed the century. He was still able for 

 mental work, and occupied himself forecasting his third volume of Scientific 

 Papers and even criticising some of his own later papers published in the 

 second volume. Once or twice in these days, when he was wholly confined to 

 bed, he spoke to me of the linear vector function as something which still 

 awaited development there was a truth in it which had not yet been divined 

 by the mind of man. 



