CHAP. IX.] ABERDEEN. 257 



It is not pleasant to go down to live solitary, but it 

 would not be pleasant to stay up either, when all one had to 

 do lay elsewhere. The transition state from a man into a 

 Don must come at last, and it must be painful, like gradual 

 outrooting of nerves. When it is done there is no more 

 pain, but occasional reminders from some suckers, tap-roots, 

 or other remnants of the old nerves, just to show what was 

 there and what might have been. 



After his father's death, Maxwell set himself anew 1856. 

 to the tasks before him, with a mingled sense of loss 

 and responsibility. One of his first duties was to 

 apply himself to the management of his estate. He 

 remained at Grlenlair during most of the summer, only 

 making a short excursion to Belfast on account of his 

 cousin, William Cay, who, in accordance with his 

 advice, was about to study Engineering under James 

 Thomson, the brother of the Glasgow Professor. In 

 the autumn, besides entertaining Charles Hope Cay, 

 then a boy of fifteen, in his school holidays, he had 

 various Cambridge friends to stay with him, as in 

 former years. 1 



In November he began his work at Aberdeen. A 

 Scotch Professor has one advantage over a College 

 lecturer at Cambridge. If his students are less ad- 

 vanced, he has the entire direction of their work in 

 his own department. It is left to him, apart from any 



1 With one of these, who happened to be " Carlyle-mad," he drove 

 one day on pilgrimage to Craigenputtock. The enthusiast, in his 

 rapture, harangued an old peasant, who was hoeing " neeps," on the 

 glorious doings of the former tenant of the farm-house. The man 

 listened, stooping over his work till the rhapsody was over, then 

 looked up for a moment saying, " It is aye gude that mends," and 

 resumed his labour. Maxwell was fond of relating this. 



S 



