504 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
“ been removed ; a man great in intellect, and in the power of using 
££ it, and in clearness of vision and purity of purpose, and therefore 
££ great in his influence, always for good, on his fellowmen ; we feel 
££ that we have lost a strong and true friend. ” 
After enjoying eighteen years’ joint work with Tait on our book, 
twenty-three years without this tie have given me undiminished 
pleasure in all my intercourse with him. I cannot say that our meet- 
ings were never unruffled. We had keen differences (much more 
frequent agreements) on every conceivable subject, — quaternions, 
energy, the daily news, politics, quicquid agunt homines , etc., etc. 
We never agreed to differ, always fought it out. But it was almost 
as great a pleasure to fight with Tait as to agree with him. His 
death is a loss to me which cannot, as long as I live, be replaced. 
The cheerful brightness which I found on our first acquaintance 
forty-one years ago remained fresh during all these years, till first 
clouded when news came of the death in battle of his son Freddie 
in South Africa, on the day of his return to duty after recovery 
from wounds received at Magersfontein. The cheerfulness never 
quite returned. The sad and final break-down in health came 
after a few weeks of his University lectures in October and 
November of last year. His last lecture was given on December 
11, 1900. 
