386 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAT. 



To the Same. 



<PiTLOCRiE, September 25th, 1859. 



' . . . We returned on Wednesday from Aberdeen, 

 having hesitated about going even to the very last hour. 

 . . . I spent the morning in Section A, and made no 

 communications except a speech of about half an hour, 

 arising out of another person's paper Jas. Thomson 

 on the Properties of Ice, which was well received, and 

 there was no painful discussion whatever. Tyndall was 

 not there. About two o'clock some hungry philosophers 

 were generally willing to attack a cold pie which we 

 had provided in our lodgings close to the Sections, and 

 which enabled us to see some real old friends in a quiet 

 way ; such as Airy, Faraday, Vernon Harcourt, Lloyd, 

 William Thomson, &c. &c.' 



To A. WILLS, ESQ. 



'EDINBURGH, November 14^, 1859. 



' . . . To-day is the first day, for several weeks, that 

 I have had any remission from a heavy and wearing 

 correspondence, which has been thrust upon me by 

 the coincidence of a variety of affairs of an anxious 

 kind at one and the same moment. The illness and 

 somewhat sudden death of my next elder brother not 

 him whom you saw at Aberdeen and to whom I have 

 from infancy been deeply attached, has closed with its 

 solemn warning this period of mixed disappointment 

 and success. 



' As regards the Royal Society affair, the mere irritation 

 occasioned by apparent neglect and jealousy subsides 

 under the visitation of mortality ; but the deepest sting 

 a moral imputation, from which, notwithstanding the 

 reiterated disclaimers which I have received, I cannot 

 conceive the recent attacks to have been wholly free- 

 remains behind with something like a leaden weight. 

 The generous support which I receive from yourself 

 and a few old attached friends, diminishes even the 

 residuum considerably. 



