CHAP. XIII.] PROFESSOR HORT's RECOLLECTIONS. 417 



FROM PROF. F. J. A. HORT TO PROF. L. CAMPBELL. 



Feb. 4, 1882. 



It is with extreme regret that I find myself powerless 

 to comply with your request that I should contribute to 

 your Memoir of Professor Maxwell a sketch of his position 

 in reference to theology and religion. A competent and 

 faithful account of Maxwell's inner thoughts during man- 

 hood would for several reasons have been of the highest 

 interest. But his habitual reticence as to all that moved 

 him deeply, and my own bad memory, have together left me 

 without the materials needed for a task in itself most attract- 

 ive. Though the impression of rare greatness which he 

 left upon me in the first days of our acquaintance became 

 stronger and stronger to the end, I have little to offer but a 

 few vague and scattered reminiscences. Such as they are, 

 I am thankful to be allowed to send them. 



My earlier recollections of Maxwell are chiefly associated 

 with a small society at Cambridge to which we both belonged, 

 which used to meet on Saturday evenings for the discussion 

 of literary and speculative questions. The aversion to 

 rhetoric which he found traditional among its members was 

 much to his taste, and he always took an animated and 

 interested part in the conversations. Unfortunately his love 

 of speaking in- parables, combined with a certain obscurity 

 of intonation, rendered it often difficult to seize his meaning ; 

 but bright and penetrating little sayings, usually whimsical 

 in form, and sometimes accompanied by strange gestures, 

 recurred almost unfailingly at no distant intervals. Whether 

 the tone of his mind was much affected by his participation 

 in our discussions it is difficult to say. During the time 

 that I knew him I can recall no perceptible signs of change 

 other than quiet growth, and suspect that he attained too 

 early and too stable a maturity to receive easily a new direc- 

 tion from any kind of intercourse with his University con- 

 temporaries. But it is likely enough that his mind was at 

 least invigorated and consolidated by an influence which 

 others have found reason to count among the strongest and 

 also on the whole most salutary that they have known. 



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