248 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. IX. 



His letters to his father and others at this time 

 sufficiently explain the course of his candidature, in 

 which the point most deserving notice is the generous 

 way in which he speaks of his rivals. While treating 

 the whole matter with his usual grave irony, he seems 

 to have conducted his part of it with considerable 

 sagacity, and when he returned to Edinburgh about 

 the middle of March everything was well in train. 

 He had the pleasure of knowing that his father's 

 interest in the question was at least equal to his own, 

 and that the old man had been roused by it to some 

 return of his former vigour. But the end was near. 

 After a few days spent in Edinburgh, the father and 

 son went home to Glenlair, as they had planned a 

 matter of no small anxiety and difficulty. The short 

 vacation had all but passed away, when, on Thursday 

 the 2d of April, just before his son was to have 

 returned to Cambridge, Mr. John Clerk Maxwell 

 suddenly expired. 



The outward change was not very great. Max- 

 well went up to Cambridge as usual. Glenlair was 

 still his home. His interest in his own subjects was 

 undiminished. His candidature for Aberdeen con- 

 tinued. But the personal loss to him was incalculable 

 and irreparable. Their long daily companionship had 

 been followed by a correspondence which was all but 

 daily, by vacations spent together, and an uninter- 

 rupted interchange, whether present or absent, of 

 thoughts and social interests, both light and grave. 

 During the last six months it is true the old man had 

 been failing, and, to outward observers, was consider- 



