CHAP. XIII.] CONCLUSION. 427 



I have known, he was never tired of a joke which had 

 once tickled him ; only, if retained in employment, it 

 must always be tricked out with some new livery, and 

 have some fresh turn given to it. As late as the 

 summer of 1879, in writing to Professor Baynes about 

 an article on Chemistry for the Encyclopedia Bri- 

 tannica, he repeated in some new way the well-worn 

 jest about "an Analyser or a Charlatan." Even on 

 his deathbed at Cambridge, in familiar converse with 

 his cousin and friend, Mr. Colin Mackenzie, he still 

 used the old quaint familiar speech : " No, not that 

 phial ! the little red-headed chap ! " 



Nor is it necessary to dwell on the rare freshness 

 of feeling which he carried into middle life. The 

 reader of his correspondence at any period must feel 

 involuntarily that he had "the dew of his youth." 



In thinking of him in college days, I used often 

 to associate him in my own mind with Socrates. 

 There is one point in the resemblance which I had not 

 then realised, the "Socratic strength" of Antisthenes 

 his extraordinary power of moral and physical 

 endurance. Once at Cambridge, when his wife was 

 lying ill in her room, and a terrier, who had already 

 shown " a wild trick of his ancestors," was watching 

 beside the bed, Maxwell happened to go in for the 

 purpose of moving her. The dog sprang at him and 

 fastened on his nose. In order not to disturb Mrs. 

 Maxwell, he went out quietly, holding his arm beneath 

 the creature, which was still hanging to his face. 



What had struck me, I suppose, in making the 

 above comparison, was the eager spirit of inquiry 



