344 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. XL 



own mistake may sometimes be profitable, but to seek for 

 another man's mistake is weariness to the flesh. 



There are three ways of learning props. the heart, the 

 head, and the fingers ; of these the fingers is the thing for 

 examinations, but it requires constant practice. Neverthe- 

 less the fingers have a fully better retention of methods than 

 the heart has. The head method requires about a mustard 

 seed of thought, which, of course, is expensive, but then it 

 takes away all anxiety. The heart method is full of anxiety, 

 but dispenses with the thought, and the finger method 

 requires great labour and constant practice, but dispenses 

 with thought and anxiety together. 



We have had very fine weather since you went away, 

 but I was laid up for more than three weeks with erysipelas 

 all over my head, and got very shaky on my pins. But I 

 have been out for a fortnight, and riding regularly as of old, 

 which is good for Katherine after the nursing, and I eat 

 about double what any man in Galloway does, and know 

 nothing of it in half an hour ; but my legs are absorbing the 

 beef as fast as it is administered. 



To THE EEV. C. B. TAYLER. 



8 Palace Gardens Terrace, W., 

 2d February 1866. 



I was very glad to get your kind letter, and to be assured 

 that you still remembered me. I thought of you when I 

 was in Cambridge, and made up my mind to write to you 

 and hear of you and Mrs. Tayler, and your nephew George. 

 A nephew of yours was for a short time in my class in King's 

 Coll., and I asked him about you, but he had not seen you 

 lately. Is George still in Hull ? 



You ask for my history since I wrote to you before my 

 marriage. We remained in Aberdeen till 1860, when the 

 union or fusion of the Colleges took place, and I went to 

 King's Coll., London, where I taught till last Easter, when I 

 was succeeded by W. G. Adams, brother of the astronomer. 

 I have now my time fully occupied with experiments and 

 speculations of a physical kind, which I could not undertake 



