CHAP. VII.] BACHELOR-SCHOLAR. 217 



scarce. 1 However, there are plenty friends not intellectual, 

 who serve to bring out the active and practical habits of 

 mind, which overly-intellectual people seldom do. Where- 

 fore, if I am to be up this term, I intend to addict myself 

 rather to the working men who are getting up classes, than 

 to pups., who are in the main a vexation. Meanwhile there 

 is the examination 2 to consider. 



Trin. Coll., 5th October 1855. 



You say Dr. Wilson has sent his book. I will write and 

 thank him. I suppose it is about colour-blindness. I 

 intend to begin Poisson's papers on electricity and magnetism 

 to-morrow. I have got them out of the library ; my reading 

 hitherto has been of novels, Shirley and The Newcomes, and 

 now Westward Ho. 



Trin. Coll., 10th October 1855. 



Macmillan proposes to get up a book of optics, with my 

 assistance, and I feel inclined for the job. There is great 

 bother in making a mathematical book, especially on a sub- 

 ject with which you are familiar, for in correcting it you do 

 as you would to pups. look if the principle and result is 

 ri^ht, and forget to look out for small errors in the course 

 of the work. However, I expect the work will be salutary, 

 as involving hard work, and in the end much abuse from 

 coaches and students, and certainly no vain fame, except in 

 Macmillan's puffs. But, if I have rightly conceived the plan 

 of an educational book on optics, it will be very different in 

 manner, though not in matter, from those now used. 



FROM HIS FATHER. 



Gknlair, 10th October 1855. 



The book sent by Dr. Wilson is the full edition about 

 colour-blindness, with notes and appendices, containing your 

 letter to him and notices of your communications to him on 

 the subject. 



1 This is said d propos of a recent visit to a college friend who was 

 settled as a clergyman in the country. 



2 For the Trinity College Fellowship. 



