CHAP. VI.] SCHOLAR OF TRINITY. 163 



The impression he made on older persons with 

 whom he was less intimate may be gathered from 

 the remarks of Dean Eamsay in a note to Miss Cay : 



I had great pleasure in seeing your nephew, young 

 Clerk Maxwell. He is shrewd and cautious. He seems to 

 like Cambridge, and I doubt not will distinguish himself. 

 He is sparing in his words, but what he says is to the 

 point. 



The following contribution from the Kev. Charles 

 Hope Kobertson, the Sector of Smeeth (above, p. 152), 

 throws light on more than one aspect of his life at 

 this period : 



I was at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the same years 

 as Clerk Maxwell, and for some time had lodgings in the 

 same house. This, as well as knowing him before in 

 Edinburgh, led to our frequently meeting. 



He was of a very kindly disposition (under a blunt 

 exterior), of which I can give an example. I had hurt my 

 eyes a good deal with experiments on light, while working 

 up for a course of Professor Forbes's lectures at Edinburgh 

 College, and for a good part of iny undergraduate course 

 was able to use them very little. He used to find me 

 sitting in my rooms with closed eyes, unable to prepare for 

 next day's lectures, and often gave up an hour of his recre- 

 ation time, to read out to me some of the book-work I 

 wanted to get over. This infirmity prevented my reading 

 for more than a moderate degree in mathematical honours ; 

 but I should have been still worse off if he had not thus 

 been " eyes to the blind" for me. 



He had an innate reverence for sacred things, which I 

 do not think was ever much disturbed by the scepticism 



modern poets he used to note their fondness for particular colours, e.g., 

 the uses of " white," " red," " black," " ruby," " emerald," " sapphire," 

 in Tennyson and Browning. 



