106 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



expression you may remember you objected to. ... A 

 month hence, I shall have finished my course, and then 

 propose to escape for a little relaxation. I shall probably 

 go to London, and hope to see you. I am certainly 

 relieved at having got well through so much of my 

 course. The responsibility I felt was oppressive. But 

 my labours have been more than rewarded by the efforts 

 of my pupils, and the obvious improvement in the 

 method and degree of study which has been the 

 consequence. I have given about twenty lectures to the 

 more advanced, going as far as * Poisson's Demonstration 

 of the Direct Problem of Central Forces,' which, humble 

 as it may appear to you, is a step among us ' hyperborean 

 sages/ 



He might well feel a sense of release and exhilaration 

 at the prospect of the close of his first session as a 

 Professor. In any case, it is something to feel that the 

 strain of six months' continuous lecturing is nearly at 

 an end. But to feel that his first year's course was 

 achieved with satisfaction to himself, with benefit to his 

 pupils, and with the approval of all, was more than 

 a common joy. Whatever misgivings he may have 

 had as he entered the Natural Philosophy Class-room 

 in November were now well over. Whatever doubts 

 as to the fitness of his appointment others may have 

 entertained on the ground of his youth and inexperience 

 were silenced by the test of fact. Henceforth he must 

 have felt he was fully ' master of the situation,' and, as 

 long as health lasted, his work there was not an oppressive 

 burden, but an ample field for his abundant energy. 

 It was not, however, self-complacency, but feelings of 

 quite another kind that the retrospect of the session so 

 successfully closed called up within him. This is the 

 entry of his private journal : 



< Greenhill, April 20th, 1834. I will not let this day 

 pass without recording my deep and heartfelt sense of 

 the special goodness and protecting power of God, which 

 I have experienced during the past fifteen months of 



