1.^73 LETTER TO TYXDALL ^in 



reports of your lectures which reached us, especially with that 

 which spoke of your having " a strong English accent." 



The loss of your assistant seems to have been the only de- 

 duction to be made from your success. I am afraid you must 

 have felt it much in all ways. 



" My Lord " received your telegram only after the business 

 of " securing Hirst " was done. That is one of the bright spots 

 in a bad year for me. Goschen consulted Spottiswoode and me 

 independently about the headship of the new Naval College, 

 and was naturally considerably surprised by the fact that we 

 coincided in recommending Hirst. . . . The upshot was that 

 Goschen asked me to communicate with Hirst and see if he 

 would be disposed to accept the offer. So I did, and found to 

 my great satisfaction that Hirst took to the notion very kindly. 

 I am sure he is the very best man for the post to be met with 

 in the three kingdoms, having that rare combination of qualities 

 by which he gets on with all manner of men, and singularly 

 attracts young fellows. He will not only do his duty, but be 

 beloved for doing it, which is what few people can compass. 



I have little news to give you. The tail of the X.-Hooker 

 storm is drifting over the scientific sky in the shape of fresh 

 attacks by Owen on Hooker. Hooker answered the last 

 angelically, and I hope they are at an end. 



The wife has just come in and sends her love (but is careful 

 to add "second-best"). The chicks grow visibly and audibly, 

 and Jess looks quite a woman. All are well except myself, and I 

 am getting better from a fresh breakdown of dyspepsia. I find 

 that if I am to exist at all it must be on strictly ascetic prin- 

 ciples, so there is hope of my dying in the odour of sanctity 

 yet. If you recollect, Lancelot did not know that he should " die 

 a holy man " till rather late in life. I have forgotten to tell you 

 about the Rectorship of Aberdeen. I refused to stand at first, 

 on the score of health, and only consented on condition that I 

 should not be called upon to do any public work until after the 

 long vacation. It was a very hard fight, and although I had an 

 absolute majority of over fifty, the mode of election is such that 

 one vote, in one of the four nations, would have turned the 

 scale by giving my opponent the majority in that nation. We 

 should then have been ties, and as the chancellor, who has under 

 such circumstances a casting vote, would have (I believe) given 

 it against me, I should have been beaten. 



As it is, the fact of anyone, who stinketh in the nostrils of 

 orthodoxy, beating a Scotch peer at his own gates in the most 



