206 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. VII. 



all his other employments was now added that of 

 helping to nurse his friend Pomeroy, who was struck 

 down with bilious fever. 



His many-sided nature was in full activity. It is 

 most characteristic of him that at this important crisis 

 of his intellectual life, the best hour of day after day 

 was given ungrudgingly to the task of literally making 

 a friend's bed in his sickness. A lighter trait of the 

 same kind may be found in the fact that, in the midst 

 of the fellowship examination, he had given his father 

 detailed advice about the " vassals' " reading : 

 " When Sam Murdoch has finished Arabia, there are 

 the volumes of the Cabinet Library, called Drake, 

 Cavendish, and Dampier, and Circumnavigation of 

 the Globe, Humboldt's Travels and Polar Regions, 

 but it would be better to change and try the third 

 volume of Household Words." 



His thoughts turned homewards the more often, 

 because his father's health was now becoming a matter 

 for grave anxiety. In going up to Trinity for the 

 fellowship trials, he had been doubtful whether in any 

 case it would be right for him to stay up for the rest 

 of the term. And, although this question was decided 

 in the affirmative, every letter home bears some trace 

 of his unceasing solicitude. 



Thus, at the close of a period of manifold brightness, 

 there was some foreshadowing of darker days shortly to 

 come, when Death would take his father from him, and 

 make the first breach in the circle of his friends. 



