i85l ELECTED F.R.S. 73 



My friend Forbes, to whom I am so much indebted, has 

 taken the matter in hand for me, and I am told I am sure of 

 getting it this year or the next. I do not at all expect it this 

 year, as there are a great many candidates, far better men than 

 I. ... I shall think myself lucky if I get it next year. Don't 

 say anything about the matter till I tell you. ... As the old 

 proverb says, there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. 



There were thirty-eight candidates; of these the Council 

 would select fifteen, and submit their names for election at a 

 general meeting of the Society. He was not yet twenty-six 

 years of age, and certainly the youngest and least known 

 of the competitors. Others probably had been up before — 

 possibly many times before ; nevertheless, on this, his first 

 candidature, he was placed among the selected. The formal 

 election did not take place till June 5, but on a chance 

 visit to Forbes he heard the great news. The F.R.S. was a 

 formal attestation of the value of the work he had already 

 done ; it was a token of success in the present, an augury 

 of greater success in the future. No wonder the news was 

 exciting. 



To-day (he writes on April 14) I saw Forbes at the Museum 

 of Practical Geology, where I often drop in on him. " Well," he 

 said, " I am glad to be able to tell you you are all right for the 

 Royal Society; the selection was made on Friday night, and I 

 hear that you are one of the selected. I have not seen the list, 

 but my authority is so good that you may make yourself easy 

 about it." I confess to having felt a little proud, though I 

 believe I spoke and looked as cool as a cucumber. There were 

 thirty-eight candidates, out of whom only fifteen could be 

 selected, and I fear that they have left behind much better men 

 than I. I shall not feel certain about the matter until I receive 

 some official announcement. I almost wish that until then I 

 had heard nothing about it. Notwithstanding all my cucumbery 

 appearance, I will confess to you that I could not sit down and 

 read to-day after the news. I wandered hither and thither rest- 

 lessly half over London. . . . Whether I have it or not, I can 

 say one thing, that I have left my case to stand on its own 

 strength ; I have not asked for a single vote, and there are not 

 on my certificate half the names that there might be. If it be 

 mine, it is by no intrigue. 



