184 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. VI. 



FKOM HIS FATHER. 



Edinburgh, 21st February 1853. 



The Halo and accompaniment of the 15th had been 

 very curious. I never saw the appearance of Mock Suns. 



Lord Cockburn went in plain dress to the fancy ball. 

 When the crowd hissed him, he said he was the minister 

 that was to many them all ! ! 



To Miss CAY. 



Trin. Coll, llth March 1853. 



I was so much among the year that is now departed that it 

 makes a great difference in my mode of life. I have been 

 seeking among the other years for some one to keep me in 

 order. It is easier to find instructive men than influential 

 ones. I left off here last night to go to a man's rooms 

 where I met several others, who had gone a -prowling like 

 me. ... I have been reading Archdeacon Hare's sermons, 

 which are good. 



Trin. Coll, Feast of St. Charles II. 



Pomeroy's mother and sister were up here lately. They 

 used to be at Cheltenham. From them I learnt a good 

 deal about the systematic and uncompromising mode of 

 thinking and speaking which marks the great Irish Giant 

 of Trinity. Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand prought l here 

 yesterday about missions. He founded the Lady Margaret 

 boat club at John's, and got the boat to the head of the 

 river. He was 2d Classic in 1831, and still he is too 

 energetic for his curates to keep up with him in his own 

 visitations about the South Pole. He made a great im- 

 pression on the men here by his plainness of speech and 

 absence of all cant, whether he spoke of the doctrines of 

 Christianity or the history of Pitcairn's Island. I have 

 been reading various books, but few very entertaining. 

 They are chiefly theories about things in general which 

 take the fancies of men now-a-days. The only safe way to 



1 i.e. preached. 



