188 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. VI. 



To THE EEV. C. B. TAYLER. 



Trin. Coll, 8th July 1853. 

 Evening Post. 



MY DEAR FRIEND Your letter was handed to me by 

 the postman as I was taking a walk after morning chapel. 

 As I was engaged then, I thought I might wait till the 

 evening. I breakfasted with Macmillan the publisher, 

 who has a man called Alexander Smith with him, who 

 published a volume of poems in the beginning of the year 

 which have been much read here, and, indeed, everywhere, 

 for 3000 copies have been sold already. He is a designer 

 of patterns for needlework, and he refuses to be made cele- 

 brated or to leave his trade. He speaks strong Glasgow, 

 but without affectation, and is well-informed without the pre- 

 tence of education, commonly so called. People would not 

 expect from such a man a book in which the author seems 

 to transfer all his own states of mind to the objects he sees. 

 But he is young and may get wiser as he gets older. 

 He sees and can tell of the beauty of things, but he 

 connects them artificially. He may come to prefer the 

 real and natural connection, and after that he may per- 

 haps stir us all up by bringing before us real human 

 objects of interest he has only dimly seen in the solitude 

 of his youth. 



I told you how I meant to go to Hopkins. He was not 

 in. I had a talk with him on Sunday ; he recommended 

 light work for a while, and afterwards he would give me an 

 opportunity of making up what I had lost by absence. 

 Yesterday I did a paper of his on the Differential Calculus 

 without fatigue, and as well as usual. Ask George 

 how Mr. Hughes has arranged about Examinations. I 

 will write to him soon, and send him a mass of papers 

 in an open packet, to be taken twice a week, or not so 

 often. 



You dimly allude to the process of spoiling which has 

 gone on during the last 2 years. I admit that people have 

 been kind to me, and also that I have seen more variety 

 than in other years ; but I maintain that all the evil influ- 



