242 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



by me, the class, to the number of about forty-five, had 

 been secured without any effort on my part. The proposi- 

 tion was pleasing to me, as it placed me professionally in a 

 new position, responsible indeed, but promising to secure 

 additional favor for the science then so new in Yale College, 

 and almost new indeed in this country. Having been before 

 accredited in my public character by Governor Trumbull, 

 and invited by him to his house, I learned with pleasure 

 that his daughter, Miss Harriet Trumbull, would soon go to 

 New Haven, and pass some weeks with the ladies of the 

 family of the Hon. James Hillhouse. I thought it not in- 

 trusive, therefore, to invite her to attend on the professional 

 course of lectures with the young ladies of the Hillhouse 

 family; and having been before received into the confi- 

 dence and friendship of Mr. Daniel Wadsworth, of Hart- 

 ford, Miss Trumbull's brother-in-law, I ventured still further 

 as his friend, to offer myself to show her those civilities 

 which might be useful and agreeable during her stay in 

 New Haven. This statement would hardly be appropriate 

 to scientific reminiscence, were it not that the proposed 

 course had, in New Haven, turned on female hinges, and 

 as I had occasion afterwards to know, sentiment lubricated 

 the joints. It was my province in the proposed course to 

 explain the affinities of matter, and I had not advanced far 

 in my pleasing duties before I discovered that moral affin- 

 ities, also moving without my intervention, were playing 

 an important part. To this I could not object, and it 

 was certainly the most gratifying result of my labors that 

 several happy unions grew incidentally out of those bright 

 evening meetings. The happy parties enjoyed many ge- 

 nial years, although death has now broken all those har- 

 ^monious bands asunder. This being my first attempt to 

 explain science to a popular audience I endeavored to 

 study simplicity and perspicuity ; simplicity in the absence 

 of all unnecessary technicality, and perspicuity by the 

 choice of good Saxon words and by explaining all that 







