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Blackburn, may detect something of the difference between the father and the son. In the one there is a grave and placid acquiescence in the nearer environment, the very opposite of enthusiasm or mysticism ; in the other, the artist has succeeded in catching the un- earthly look which often returned to the deep-set eyes under the vaulted brow, when they had just before been sparkling with fun, — the look as of one who has heard the concert of the morning stars and the shouting of the Sons of God.
James himself has said to me that to have had a wise and good parent is a great stay in life, and that no man knows how much in him is due to his progenitors. And yet the speculative ideal element which was so strong in him — the struggle towards the infinite through the finite — was not prominent in either of his parents. Clerk Maxwell was, no doubt, a good and pious not bigoted Episcopalian ; but, from all that appears, her chief bent, like that of her husband, must have been practical and matter-of-fact.
Her practicality, however, was different from his. She was of a strong and resolute nature, — as prompt as he was cautious and considerate, — more per- emptory, but less easily perturbed. Of gentle birth and breeding, she had no fine-ladyisms, but with blunt deter- mination entered heart and soul into that rustic life. She was very intelligent and in- genious, played well on the organ, and composed some music, but in other respects was less "accomplished" than most of her family, except in domestic works, and above all in knitting, which in those days was an elegant and most elaborate pursuit.
Her father, R Hodshon Cay, Esq. Charlton, is thus spoken of in Lockliaxt's Life of Scott p. Eobert Cay, — an accomplished gentleman, afterwards Judge of the Admiralty Court in Scotland, — to put the Faculty's cabinet of medals in proper arrangement. The eldest son, John, has been already mentioned as an early companion of John Clerk jSIaxwell's, and both his name and those of Jane and R. Clerk jNIaxwell and her sister Jane, who was never married, there existed a very close afi'ection.
There is a picture of them both as young girls a three- quarter length in water-colours done by their mother, who was an accomplished artist. Her gift in this way, which was very remarkable, and highly cultivated for an amateur, was continued in Jane and Robert, and has been trans- mitted to the succeeding generation. His wife joined him there in , and died in In two of their sons, besides the artistic tastes which they inherited through both parents, there was developed remarkable mathematical ability.
It should be also noticed that Mr. John Cay, the Sheriff of Linlithgow, though not specially educated in mathematics, was extremely skilful in arith- metic and fond of calculation as a voluntary pursuit. He was a great favourite in society, and full of general infor- mation. We have already seen him assisting at experi- ments which might have led to the invention of " blowing fans," but seem to have produced no such profitable result. And we shall find that his interest in practical Science was continued late in after life.
Having departed so far from the order of events, I may before concluding this chapter make explicit mention of the loss which coloured the greater part of James Clerk Maxwell's existence, by leaving him motherless in his ninth year. Clerk Maxwell died on the 6th of December There was extant until after Professor Maxwell's death a memorandum or diary kept at the time by her husband, describing the heroic fortitude which she had shown under the pain of her disease, and of the operation by which they had attempted to save her.
Anaesthetics were then unknown. She had nearly completed her forty- eighth year, having been born on the 25th of March , and married at the age of 34 October 4, Maxwell was aged fifty- two at the time of his wife's death. He did not marry again. At this joyful epoch Mr. Clerk Maxwell, though retaining the house in India Street, had been already settled for some rears in their new home at Glenlair. That part of the old estate of Middlebie which remained to the heirs of Maxwell was situate on the right or west- ward bank of the Water of Orr, or Urr, in Kirkcudbright- shire, about seven miles from Castle-Douglas, the market- town, ten from Dalbeattie, with its granite quarries, and sixteen from Dumfries.
It consisted chiefly of the farm of Nether Corsock, and the moorland of Little Mochrum. But, before building, Mr. Clerk Maxwell, by exchange and purchases, had added other lands to these, including the farm of Upper Glenlair. The site chosen for the house was near to the march of the original estate, where a little moor- burn from the westward falls into the Urr. The two streams contain an angle pointing south-east, opposite the heathery brae which hides the village of Kirkpatrick Durham.
There, on a rising ground above the last descent towards the river and the burn, a mansion-house of solid masonry, but of modest dimensions, had been erected. It was built of dark-gray stone, with a pavement and a " louping-on-stane " of granite before the front door. On the eastward slope, towards the Water of Urr, was a large undivided meadow for the " kye " and the ponies. At the foot of the meadow, near the mouth of the burn, was a ford with stepping-stones, where the bridge was afterwards to be built, and the regular approach to the completed house was to be constructed.
But this was far in the future, for in his building projects the laird would not trench upon the resources that were needed for the land. At the foot of the garden a place was hollowed out in the bed of the burn, which has often proved convenient for bathing. The rocky banks of the Urr, higher up, were fringed with wood, and on the upland, on either side the moor, there were clumps of plantation, giving cover to the laird's pheasants, and breaking the force of the winds coming down from the hill of Mochrum N.
Glenlair was the name ultimately appropriated to the "great house" of Xether Corsock. Every detail of these arrangements had been planned by the laird himself, and may be said to have been exe- cuted under his immediate supervision. The house was so placed and contrived as to admit of enlargement ; but, in the first erection of it, space was economised as in the fitting up of a ship. And while it was building, the owners were contented with still narrower accommodation, spending one if not two whole summers in what was afterwards the gardener's cottage.
For the journey from Edinburgh was no light matter, even for so experienced a traveller as John Clerk Maxwell. Carriages, in the modern sense, were hardly known to the Yale of Urr. A sort of double- gig with a hood was the best apology for a travelling coach, and the most active mode of locomotion was in a kind of rough dog-cart, known in the family speech as a "burly.
Clerk Maxwell was one of the elders there. The little church of Corsock, about three miles up the Urr, was not yet thought of ; for it was built in , and not completely endowed until About seven miles of hilly road lead from the Urr to Loch Ken and the Dee, which is reached at a point near Cross-Michael, about half-way between New Galloway in one direction and Kirkcudbright and St. On the hio-h ground between the Urr and the Dee is Loch Eoan, a favourite point for expeditions from Glenlair. In a letter dated "Corsock, 25th April " the 'Boy Jit 2 yrs.
Corsock, 25th Aiwil This has been a great day in Parton. Master James is in great go, but on this subject I must surrender the pen to abler hands to do justice to the subject. Instead of attempting to paraphrase a mode of speech which must be studied in and for itself, I will now give the continuation, written on the same sheet of paper by the "abler pen. He also investigates the hidden course of streams and bell-wires, the way the water gets from the pond through the wall and a pend or small bridge and down a drain into Water 1 The seat of the Earl of Selkirk.
Daybreak ; but in the laird's vocabulary, 9 a. Orr, then past the smiddy and down to the sea, where Maggy's ships sail As to the bells, they wiU not nist ; he stands sentry in the kitchen, and Mag runs thro' the house ringing them aU by turns, or he rings, and sends Bessy to see and shout to let him know, and he drags papa all over to show him the holes where the wires go through. We went to the shop and ordered hats and bonnets, and as he was freckling Avith the sun I got him a black and white straw till the other was ready, and as an apology to Meg said it would do to toss about ; he heard me, and acts accordingly.
Since last letter, I have made some pairs of diagrams repre- senting solid figures and curves drawn in space ; of these pictures one is seen with each eye by means of mirrors, thus. I melt out the wax with the lens, that being the cleanest way of getting a strong heat, so I do most things with it that need heat. Droop, have died in the short interim. Of his education in the narrower sense durinsj this period little is known, except that his mother had the principal charge of it until her last illness in , and that she encouraged him to " look up through Nature to Nature's God. He was not in the least inwardly per- turbed by all this, nor bore any one the slightest mahce. This is not true, for they belong also to geometric figures, which are forms of thought and not of matter ; therefore the atomists maintain that empty space is an accident, and has not only a possible but a real existence, and that there is more space empty than fuU.
His great delight is to help Sandy Frazer with the water barrel. I sent the fine hat to Mrs. You would get letters and violets by a woman that was going back to her place ; the latter would perhaps be rotten, but they were gathered by James for Aunt Jane. Not much dragging was needed, either then or after- wards, to get! Clerk to explain any mechanism to "boy," and "show him how it doos. Before seeing this letter, I had been told by his cousin, Mrs. I distinctly remember his telling me, during his early manhood, that his first recollection was that of lying on the grass before his father s house, and looking at the sun, and ivondering.
He said, ' Do look, Maggy, and go for papa and mamma. It was delightful to see his papa ; he was delighted. Dyce's picture of the mother and child we see this open-eyed loving intercourse with the visible universe already begun. And in the accompanying woodcut p. The spirit which afterwards welcomed the acoustic discoveries of Helmholtz was already at work. A round hole is made in the cardboard for every star, differing in size so as to show the magnitude of each.
The whole is executed with laborious neatness, and it seems probable that we have here the means whether purchased or made at home whereby the configuration of the starry heavens was still further impressed on ' ' Jamsie's " raind. He has told me that he remembered a time when it was exquisitely painful to him to hear music.
This time must clearly have been subsequent to The truth seems to be that his naturally keen perception of sounds was interfered with by a tendency to inflammation in the ear, which came to a crisis in his sixteenth year, but that having outgrown this, together with other signs of delicacy, his powers in this respect also were developed with striking rapidity. On the other hand, his short- sightedness seems hardly to have been noticed till he was fourteen or fifteen. He would catch insects and watch their movements, but would never hurt them.
Mis3 Cay, used to confess that it was humiliating to be asked so many questions one could not answer "by a child like that. And here his inven- tiveness soon showed itself. He was not Iodec contented with "tossing his hat about," or fishing with a stick and a string as in an early picture of "Miss Cay's ; but whenever he saw anything that demanded constructive ingenuity in the performance, that forthwith took his fancy, and he must CHAP. And in tlie doing it, it was ten to one but he must give it some new and unexpected turn, and enliven it with some quirk of fancy. At one time he is seated on the kitchen table, busily engaged in basket -making, in which all the domestics, probably at his command, are also employed.
For he must early have attained the skill, of which an elaborate example still exists in "Mrs. Wedderburn's Abigail," which will be described in the next chapter, and was worked by him in his twelfth year. Of his education in the narrower sense durinsj this period little is known, except that his mother had the principal charge of it until her last illness in , and that she encouraged him to " look up through Nature to Nature's God.
Now she'll have no more pain. His knowledge of JMilton also dates from very early times. These things were not known merely by rote. They occupied his imagination, and sank deeper than any- body knew. Eut his most obvious interests were naturally out of doors. And chief among these was that " child of the mossy pool," the frog, — nay, humbler still, the tadpole.
The marvel of that transformation has engrossed many a child ; but in none, unless in some great naturalist, has it awak- ened such a keen, continuous interest. The movements of the frog in swimming were long a favourite study, and to jump like a frog was one of the pranks with which he astonished his companions when he " put an antic disposition on " at school ; but of these there will be a time to speak hereafter.
It was also at a later time that he was told of Galvani's discoveries ; but the recital had the more vivid interest for him because of this childhood fancy. With eminent "judiciosity," Mr. Clerk Maxwell had furnished his son with a leaping-pole. This long stafiF, which appears in many of the early drawings, had at least one excellent effect. Few civilised men have had such perfect use of hands and arms as Maxwell always had.
His hand was the model of a hand, at once effective and refined looking. Thus equipped, he went across country anywhere and everywhere, with an eye for all he saw, and pluck enough to meet any emergency. Not that he ever showed the highest order of artistic talent though his young perform- ances are full of spirit ; but he had great accuracy of eye, and any singular arrangement either of form or colour had always a fascination for him.
And there were two other frequent visitants at Glenlair, whom it is now time formally to introduce. This was graced by the presence of three persons ; then in the fulness of life, who were not destined to outlive the next. Clerk Maxwell, Miss Dyce Mrs. Kobert Cay , and Isabella Wedderburn Mrs. In spite of her early widowhood and of some long illnesses, she retained much of her spirit, together with her erect, lightsome figure, to the last, and danced a reel at James's wedding with the utmost sprightliness though at the age of seventy. Her daughter, now Mrs. Hugh Blackburn, was only eight years older than her cousin James ; but her rare genius for pictorial delineation, especially of animals, was already manifest.
It is obvious how this companion- ship of genius must have influenced the child's indoor pursuits. A scientific toy had recently come into vogue, an im- provement on the thaumatrope, called variously by the names " phenakistoscope," "stroboscope," or "magic disc. And the figures drawn upon it were so contrived, by being placed in carefully graduated positions, as thus to produce the impression of a continuous movement. Max- well's kindness, I have in my possession some of these early works, in which the ingenuity of the contriver is everywhere manifest, the hand of the artist only here and there.
The cow jumping over the waxing and waning moon, the dog pursuing the rat in and out of his hole, the circus horse, on which the man is jumping through the hoop, have the firmness and truth of touch, the fulness of life, familiar to the many admirers of J. The lenses which perfect the illusion were certainly added by Maxwell himself. There are also intricate coloured patterns, of which the hues shift and open and close as in a kaleidoscope. I would not venture to affirm that all these belong to the very earliest period.
This was a terrier of the " Mustard " kind, called Toby, Tobin, Tobs, or Tobit, according to the moment's humour. Toby was always learning some new trick performed for his wages of home-made biscuit after dinner , and neither he nor James were ever tired of repeat- ing the old ones. And by those of them whom I have been able to see, he is still remembered, not- withstanding many years of inevitable silence, with undoubt- ing affection.
The very names of the places where they lived are suggestive of quaintness and singularity, as were most things in the Galloway of that day, where it was supposed that the devil had come after the Creation, with the riddlings of the universe, and had begun " couping his creels" at Screels, till creel and all fell at Criffel.
Gallowegian dialect, which, like everything that struck the boy's fancy, laid a strong and lasting hold upon his mind. In speaking of his own childish pursuits, it is impossible not to recall the ready kindliness with which, in later life, he would devote himself to the amusement of children. There is no trait by which he is more generally remembered by those with whom he had private intercourse j and, indeed, in this also it appears that the boy was father to the man. An early drawing shows him at the age of twelve, with his father's help, good-naturedly guiding the constructive efforts of a still younger boy.
Maxwell's death, the question of education began to press. The parents had thought it possible that under their own close surveillance the boy's lessons might be continued at home until, being of the ripe age of thirteen or so, he might be entered as a student of Edinburgh University! Macmillan, the publisher, in particular, has a vivid recollection of Maxwell's ingenious ways of entertaining children, exhibiting his colour-top, showing them how to make paper boomerangs, etc.
The experiment was continued until November , but by that time, under the altered circumstances, the plan had proved unworkable. Meanwhile the boy was getting to be more venturesome, and needed to be — not driven, but led. There is one of Mrs.
Blackburn's drawings which throws a curious light on the situation at this juncture. Master James is in the duck-pond, in a wash-tub, having ousted the ducks, to the amusement of the young " vassals," Bobby and Johnny, and is paddling himself with some implement from the dairy, belike out of reach of the tutor, who has fetched a rake, and is vainly trying to bring him in. Clerk Maxwell has just arrived upon the scene with Mrs. Wedderburn, and is looking on complacently, though not without concern. Cousin Jemima has been aiding and abetting, and is holding the ' leajDing-pole, which has prob- ably served as a boat-hook in this case.
The achievement of sailing in the tub was one in which James gloried scarcely less than Wordsworth's Blind High- land boy in his tortoise shell. Dear Papa — We are all well. Yesterday they took up the Prince Regents, and they were a good crop. Fanny was there, and was frightened for me, because she thought I was drowning, and the ducks were very tame, and let me go quite close to them. Maggy is coming to-day to see the tubbing.
I have got no more to say, but remain your affectionate son, James Clerk Maxwell. Clerk Maxwell was at length roused to carry into effect what had been for some time in debate, viz. Sitting on this, and tucking his legs on either side, he could paddle about steadily and securely. Blackburn tells me that years afterwards at Ruthven, in Forfarshire, being desirous of inspecting a water-hen's nest on a deep pond where there was no boat, she adopted the same method, and made the voyage both ways alone without the slightest uneasiness. Clerk Maxwell, and have been preserved. Although not significant enough to be inserted here, they show the confidential intercourse which had sprung up between "Aunt Jane" and her sister's son.
She writes of theological and other matters which would not generally be thought interesting to a boy of ten, thanks him for his thoughtfulness in getting ferns for her, and says, " I was glad to hear you were happy, with all your experiments and adventures. There is also a reference to an elaborate set of Berlin-wool work for the furniture of the drawing-room at Glenlair, which had been begun in Mrs.
Maxwell's lifetime, and was afterwards completed by Miss Cay. The first school-days are not always a time of progress. For one whose home life has been surrounded with an atmosphere of genial ideas and liberal pursuits, to be thrown, in the intervals of "gerund-grinding," amongst a throng of boys of average intelligence and more than aver- age boisterousness, is not directly improving at the outset.
Not that Maxwell ever retrograded — for his spirit was inherently active ; but where the outward environment was such as awakened no response in him, he was like an engine whose wheels do not bite — working incessantly, but not advancing much. If the Scottish day-school system had not still been dominated by a tyrannous economy, and by that spirit of lauser faire which in education is apt to result in the prevalence of the worst, much that was in Maxwell would earlier have found natural vent and growth.
As it was, he was of course storing up impressions, as under any circumstances he would have been ; but his activities were apt for the time to take odd shapes, as in a healthy plant under a sneaping wind. Or, to employ another metaphor, the light in him was still aglow, but in passing through an alien medium its rays were often re- fracted and disintegrated. His mother's influence, had she lived, would have been most valuable to him at this time. Soon after dusk on the 18th of November, the JEt. Wedderburn's house in Edinburgh.
This with oc- casional intervals, when he was with Miss Cay was to be James Clerk Maxwell's domicile for eight or nine years to come. For, although not choosing to be much separated from James, Mr. Clerk Maxwell could not be long absent from Glenlair, and henceforward he lived a divided life be- tween the two, spending most of the winter evenings by his sister's fireside in Edinburgh, and during most of the spring and summer attending personally to the improvement of his estate.
Lord Cockburn was one of the directors. He had at one time been an assistant master at Winchester, and had subsequently, at Lockhart's recom- mendation, been tutor to Charles, Sir W. Born ; Died He resided at this College Between the years and See also Lockhart's Life, of Scoit, small edition of , pp. Various entries in his Diary testify to the father's deUberate care in placing his son at the Academy. Every- thing which seemed material to the boy's advantage had no doubt been carefully considered; but there was one serious omission, arising from Mr.
Clerk Maxwell's inveter- ate disregard of appearances.
The boy was taken to school in the same garments in which we have seen him at Glen- lair. No dress could be more sensible in itself. A tunic of hodden gray tweed is warmer than a round cloth jacket for winter wear, and the brazen clasps were a better fasten- ing for the square-toed shoes than an adjustment of black tape, which is always coming undone. But round jackets were de rigueur amongst the young gentlemen ; while it must be admitted that they were equally intolerant of dandyism.
A frill for a round collar was of course unen- durable, and the Gallovidian clasps — not to mention the square toes — were an unheard-of novelty. A new boy, coming in the second month of the second year, must in any case have had something to undergo ; but here was evident provocation to "a parcel of boys in their teens. Well, I shouldn then. It's hard to tell ; And it's likely God has got a plan To put a spirit in a man That's more than you can stow away In the heart of a child. But he'll see the day When he'll not have a bit too much for the work He's got to do.
His answer was soon ready, and his tormentors might make of it what they list. It may well be questioned, however, whether something had not passed within him, of which neither those at home nor his schoolfellows ever knew. The nickname of " Dafty " which they then gave him clung to him while he remained at school, and he took no pains to get rid of it. His " quips and cranks " were taken for "cantrips;" his quick, short, elfin laughter the only sign by which he betrayed his sensitiveness was construed into an eldritch noise.
Never was cygnet amongst goslings more misconstrued. Within the class-rooms things were not much more prosperous at first. Carmichael, was a good and experienced teacher, and an excellent scholar, in a dryish way. He was the author of the Edinburgh Academy Ch'eeJc Gtrammar and of an Account of the Irregular Greek Verbs, which has now been superseded, but was justly respected in its day. He was a good disciplinarian ; but those junior classes of sixty and upwards were too large and miscellaneous for real teaching. He had an eye for talent, too, where it was shown. But his first business was to hear our tasks, and to let us take places in the class in proportion to the accuracy and readiness with which we said them.
Maxwell did not at once enter into the spirit of this contest, in which the chief requisites, next to average talent and in- telligence, were push and promptitude. Like the boy Teufelsdrockh, he seemed to hear at school innumerable dead vocables, but no language.
His hesitation got worse and worse, and as his place in the class was not amongst the " best boys," some of his neighbours willingly did their utmost to dis- concert him. On one occasion we shall find him humor- ously retaliating. He was not in the least inwardly per- turbed by all this, nor bore any one the slightest mahce. It was a new scene of life, which he contemplated with amused curiosity. But it was natural that his chief interest should not lie there. He seldom took part in any games, though he was loyally proud of the success of his school in them, and characteristically took some interest in the spinning of "pearies" pegtops , and the collision of " bools " marbles ; but, when he could, preferred wander- ing alone, sometimes imprisoning the humble-bees on the green slope at the back and letting them go again, some- times doing queer gymnastics on the few trees that were left, — availing himself, in short, of the scanty inlets by which Nature visited that shingly ground.
His life during this period was really centred in " Old jEt. His cousin Jemima was at this time learning the art of woodcutting, and he was permitted sometimes to dig away with her tools. The result was a series of rude engravings, to which allusions occur in his letters to his father ; and a woodcut of his, representing the head of an old woman, still remains, mth the date engraved on it. In the previous year he produced more than one elaborate piece of knitting.
For years past an ample recreation- ground has been provided for the boys of the Academy. The library at his new home was more extensive than at Glenlair. Then if his father was in Edinburgh they walked together, especially on the Saturday half- holiday, and " viewed " Leith Fort, or the preparations for the Granton railway, or the stratification of Salisbury Crags ; always learning something new, and winning ideas for imagination to feed upon. Clerk Maxwell was much more like an elder brother than a "governor" to James, and there was nothing the boy could not or did not tell him, — none of his whimsical vagaries in which the father did not take JEt.
And when "his papaship " was alone at Glen- lair, James would strive to cheer him in his solitude by concocting the wildest absurdities, inventing a kind of cypher to communicate some airy nothing, illuminating his letters after the fashion of his school copy-books, and adding sketches of school-life e.
His father carefully preserved those letters, and several of them still exist. Professor Fleeming Jenkin remembers bearing bim say tbat wben be first saw tbe twisted piles of candles with wbich grocers decorate tbeir windows, be was struck by tbe curious and complex curves resulting from tbe combinations of tbese simple cylinders, and was resolved to understand all about tbat some day. In tbe letter of January 18, above, p. In order, however, to judge fairly of these enfantillages, the reader must take into account the boy's affectionate solicitude to amuse his father, who was accustomed to receive whimsical familiarities from his young relatives in "Old But at school also he gradually made his way.
He soon discovered that Latin was worth learning, and the Greek Delectus interested him, when we got so far. In arithmetic, as well as in Latin, his comparative want of readiness kept him down. On the whole he attained a measure of success which helped to secure for him a certain respect, and, however f strange he sometimes seemed to his companions, he had three qualities which they could not fail to understand — agile strength of limb, imperturbable courage, and profound good nature. Professor James Muirhead remembers him as " a friendly boy, though never quite amalgamating with the rest.
Macfarlane of Lenzie, records the following as his impression: On one occasion I remember he turned with tremendous vigour, with a kind of demonic force, on his tormentors. Mackenzie, then a bright young girl, between the years and I cannot recall the exact circumstances, only the place in the Academy yards, the warm rush of chivalrous emotion, and the look of affec- tionate recognition in Maxwell's eyes. However imper- turbable he was, one might see that he was not thick- skinned.
Shortly after this we became near neighbours, my mother's new domicile being 27 Heriot E,ow, and we were continually together for about three years. His letters now refer with more of interest to his progress at school, especially to exercises in verse, and to outdoor recreation with companions ; above all to his delight in bathing and in learning to swim.
In this, as in everything he did, he invented curious novelties, and was particularly fond of mimicking his old acquaintance, the frog. On Sundays he generally went with his father to St. Crawford's in the forenoon, and, by Miss Cay's desire, to St. John's Episcopal Chapel in the afternoon, where, also by her desire, he was for a time a member of Dean Eamsay's catechetical class. Thus, having of course learned "his questions" as a child, he became equally acquainted with the catechisms both of the Scotch and of the English Church, and with good specimens of the Presbyterian and Episcopalian styles of preaching.
From an entry in Ms father's Diary of May 19, , it appears that he was even then not free from annoyance. And I can bear witness to the fact. After describing the Virginian JEt Who first called his attention to the pyramid, cube, etc. He may have seen an account of them by chance in a book. But the fact remains that at this early time his fancy, like that of the old Greek geo- meters, was arrested by these types of complete symmetry; and his imagination so thoroughly mastered them, that he proceeded to make them with his own hand.
That he himself attached more importance to this moment than the letter indicates, is proved by the care with which he has preserved these perishable things, so that they or those which replaced them in are still in existence after thirty-seven years. Letters, to My dear Papa — The day you went away Lizzy and I went to the Zoological Gardens, and they have got an elephant, and Lizzy was frightened for its ugly face.
One gentleman had a boy that asked if the Indian cow was he. Asky 2 thinks he is a scholar, and was for going with me to' the school, and came into the dancing to-day. In the specimens still extant, the facets belonging to each plane of the original polyhedron are distinguished by specific colouring. See illustration on p. Does Bobby sail in the tub? Maxwell — I saw your son to-day, when he told me that you could not make out his riddles. Now, if you mean the Greek jokes, I have another for you. As soon as he got out he swore that he would never touch water till he had learned to swim ; but if you mean the curious letters on the last page, they are at Glenlair.
Nephew, James Clerk Maxwell. Talking about places, I am 14 to-day, but T hope to get up. Ovid prophesies very well when the thing is over, but lately he has prophesied a victory which never came to pass. I send you a Bagpiper to astonish the natives with. When dried and pulverised, it has an irritating effect upon the skin. Hence the local name: Envelope of 2Uh June — Mr. John's house is not finished yeT, I suppose.
I have cast three seaLs of Lead from the life, or rather from the death ; one of a cockle and two of muscles, one of which is, or raTher will be, on this letter J. If you want to know more look along fi: Wedderburn, 3 The sound of the "trump. It need not be observed that the capricious spelling m these letters is merely a piece of "daftness. How is a' aboot the house now our Gudeman's at home 1 How are herbs, shrubs, and trees doing?
Cay was at the church on Sunday. How do doos and Geraniums come on. Colin Mackenzie, then a child of three. Cay joined her husband in China early in the spring of Her sou Alexander was born May 7, and christened on Wednesday, June 26, Max- well had left Edinburgh for Glenlair on June 7, taking with him six pigeons in a basket, and some cuttings of pelargonium.
His first entry in the Diary after this, at Glenlair, is as follows: After dinner plant cuttings of pelargonium from Killearn, and sort the doves in the new dove-cot. The letter dated July 10 was re- ceived on July The translation from Virg. I have been going to Cramond and playing with the boys every Saturday ; they went to Ray- hills on the ninth. I have been wavering about 14 for a good while in the Latin. Holidays at Glenlair — to We can readily imagine the sense of enlargement and release with which the boy went home to Glenlair after his first long sojourn in Edinburgh.
Cousin Jemima was again there with her pencil. The " tubbing" was, of course, resumed, this time conjointly, and the scene of it was advanced from the duck-pond to the river, showing greatly increased confidence in navigation. Lawrie of Ernespie's lawn, on Tuesday the 12 th curt. The club consists of from forty to fifty members. Their meetings this summer have been quite charming.
They ranged over the whole valley, on this fair lawn to-day, and on that the next ; and after their couple of hours of archery was over, a picnic took place on the spot. At every meeting some little prize was proposed to give zest to the sport ; Mr. Herries of Spottes, for instance, gave a case of ladies' arrows, which was shot for and gained by one of the lady competitors.
Nor lacks the club its Laureate and its Painter to glorify the pastime. A scion of the House of Middle- bie has lent gallantry to the archers by his spirited songs ; and a fair lady, a friend of the same house, has painted a couple of pieces, and presented them, the one to Mr. Bell of Hillowton, the lady patroness. The former picture represents William Tell aiming at the apple on his son's head ; the latter, the chaste huntress Diana piercing a stag.
Both are " beautiful exceedingly.
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One of James's spirited songs, a parody of Scott, begin- ning " Toxophilite, the conflict's o'er," still exists in Cousm Jemima's handwiiting, with a sketch for the picture of William Tell, in which the features of the House of Middle- bie are idealised. The artist also proved the best shot on this occasion.
The poem is not worth printing, though it has characteristic touches of grotesque ingenuity and humorous observation which are very curious in a boy of twelve. Whatever he may- have intended before the death of his wife, Mr. Clerk Maxwell made no change in the dwelling-house during his lifetime. But these out-buildings had been designed by himself ; he had drawn the working plans for the masons ; he had acted as clerk of the works, rejecting unfit material, etc.
So absorbed was he in the supervision, that he omitted his usual visit to Edinburgh in July. In one of Mrs. Black- burn's drawings of the previous year, he is seen laying out the ground for the new offices, with James beside him intently contemplating his father's work. We may be sure that Mr. Maxwell had explained every step in the whole procedure, and equally sure that his son laid the lesson well to heart. Soon after this he was provided with a new source of endless amusement in the "devil -on -two -sticks," which thenceforth became inseparable from the home life at Glenlair, and the companion of his holidays at Glasgow and elsewhere, even in the Cambridge time.
In the family dialect it was humorously referred to, soito-voce, as ''the deil. No performer on the slack or tight rope ever made such intricate evolutions and gyrations. His delight in it was like that which afterwards he used to take in the dynamical top. The boy now came to know his own neighbourhood There were expeditions, visits, rides. And in the summer of there was a sort of driving excursion into the Cairnsmuir country, which is described in detail in the Diary.
Blackburn, or Professor now Sir William Thomson. The long period of mere drill and task-work was supposed to be over. We had learned the irregular Greek verbs, either by our own efforts, or by hearing others say them, and had acquired some moderate skill in Latin verse com- position. On entering the rector's class-room, our less mechanical faculties were at once called into play. We found our lessons less burdensome when we had not merely to repeat them, but were continually learning something also in school. And the repetition of Virgil and Horace was a very different thing from the repetition of the rules of gender and quantity.
Some foretaste of this more genial method had been afforded us in the previous year, when we had been encouraged to turn some bits of Virgil into English verse. But the change was, notwithstanding, considerable, and it was accompanied with another advance, which for Maxwell was at least equally important, for it was now that we began the serious study of geometry. In October Mr. Clerk Maxwell and his sister, Mrs. Wedderburn, were both far from well, and James was received in Edinburgh by his aunt, Miss Cay. He writes to his father, October 14, Max- well's first interview with him was as follows: In tlie English, Milton is better than history of Greece.
He can plate silver with it as well as copper, and he gave me a thing with which it may be done.
At night I have generally made vases. This letter is sealed with the scarabseus referred to as "the beetle. He made a plan of the large window in the rector's room, and wrote the words of the lesson in the spaces of the framework. He conned his task in that setting, and, when saying it, looked steadily at the actual window, where, as he averred, the arrangement of the panes then helped to recall the order of the words. The only fear was that by changing his place in the class he might be obliged to stand sideways to the window.
Our mathematical teacher, Mr. Gloag, was a man who combined a real gift for teaching with certain humorous peculiarities of tone and manner. He was sometimes im- patient, but had a kind heart, and we liked him all the better because we mimicked him. John Cay, Sheriff of Linlithgow.
It must have been the companionship of Maxwell that made those hours so delightful to me. We always walked home together, and the talk was incessant, chiefly on Maxwell's side. Some new train of ideas would generally begin just when we reached my mother's door. He would stand there holding the door handle, half in, half out, while, " Much like a press of people at a door Thronged his inventions, which should go before," till voices from within complained of the cold draught, and warned us that we must part. From some mathematical principle he would start off to a joke of Martinus Scriblerus, or to a quotation from Dryden, interspersing puns and other outrages on language of the wildest kind, " humming and hawing " in spite of P ; or in a quieter mood he would tell the story of Southey's Thalaha, or explain some new invention, which I often failed to understand.
Our common ground in those days was simple geometry, and never, certainly, was emula- tion more at one with friendship. But whatever outward rivalry there might be, his companions felt no doubt as to his vast superiority from the first. He seemed to be in the heart of the subject when they were only at the boundary; but the boyish game of contesting point by point with such a mind was a most wholesome stimulus, so that the mere exercise of faculty was a pure joy.
With Maxwell, as we have already seen, the first lessons of geometry branched out at once into inquiries which soon became fruitful. The following letters were written in June and July If you make two circles equal, and make three steps with the compasses of any size , and cut them out in card, and also three equal strips, with holes at each end, and joint them with thread to the upper side of one circle and the lower side of the other ; then if you put a pin through the centre of one and turn the other, the one will turn, and if you draw the same thing on both in the same position, — if you turn them ever so, — they will always be in the same position.
The subjects for prizes are as follows: I have been getting information in many books for Douglas, but I found it so difficult not to Marmionise, that is, to speak in imitation of Marmion, — that I am making it in eight syllable lines. I have got Barbom's Bruce, Buke 20, which is a help in a different language, which is aU fair ; my motto is: I have got the lend of the whole of Home's Introduction to the Knowledge of the Scri2 tures, and Prideaux's Connection of when, in one of his quaint letters to his father, there occur some lines profusely illustrated on the death of a goldfinch: Ossian makes Comala fall and die, Why should not you for Richard Goldie cry, " etc.
And in September , as above mentioned, he wrote for the Archers in the " Happy Valley " a page and more of spirited verse. A sketch from the antique. I have got the 11th prize for Scholarship, the 1st for English, the prize for English verses, and the Mathematical Medal. I tried for Scripture Knowledge, and Hamilton in the 7th has got it. I had done them 3 all, and got home at J past 2 ; but Campbell stayed till 4. I can swim a little now. Campbell has got 6 prizes. He got a letter written too soon congratulating him upon my medal ; but there is no rivalry betwixt us, as Carmichael says.
Wedderburn's health was very un- certain. Cousin Jemima was grown-up and immersed in her own pursuits, and the companionship of his cousin, George Wedderburn, a young man about Edinburgh, and a humorist of a different order, was not in every way the most suitable for the growing boy. The Diary shows that he was continually at his aunt's house, No. She sought to bring him out amongst her friends, to soften his singularities, and to make him more like other youths of his age. And he would help her with patterns, arrangement of colours, etc.
The prize was gained that year by one of the 7th. Clerk Maxwell, who writes a P. Witness the following extract from the Diary: Worked from 9 to 5. Lewis Campbell and W. Tait worked till 6. Clerk Maxwell was a frequent visitor at the Academy at this time. His broad, benevolent face and paternal air, as of a gentler Dandie Dinmont, beaming with kindness for the companions of his son, is vividly remembered by those who were our schoolfellows in The summer vacation of was spent almost wholly at Glenlair. The country gentlemen were particularly absorbed that year in political excitement, and Mr. Clerk Maxwell was often called away.
The only event worth mentioning was a "jaunt," evidently suggested by Miss Cay, to Newcastle, Durham, and Carlisle, which gave Maxwell his first direct impression of English Cathedral Architecture. The taste thus formed was strengthened by a visit to Melrose in the following summer. Saw the House of Abbotsford and antiquities in it, and go to Melrose.
Got there about 2, and settle to remain all night. Spend the day and also the evening about the Abbey.
Jane Cay and James drawing. I On returning to Edinburgh for the winter, Mr. He became more assiduous than ever in his attendance at meetings of the Edinburgh Society of Arts and Eoyal Society, and took James with him repeatedly to both. And so it happened that early in his fifteenth year the boy dipped his feet in the current of scientific inquiry, where he was to prove himself so strong a swimmer. For example, in February , he called my attention to the glacier-markings on the rocks, and discoursed volubly on this subject, which was then quite recent, and known to comparatively few.
A prominent member of the Society of Arts at this time was Mr. How com- pletely his father entered into his pursuit may best be shown by the following extracts from Mr. Hay's are drawn with a loop on 3 pins, consequently formed of portions of ellipses. Forbes at the College, and see about Jas.
Ovals and 3-foci figures and plurality of foci. Forbes, and settle to give him the theory in writing to consider. Hay, Black- woods, Forbes much pleased with them, investi- gating in books to see what has been done or known in this subject. To write to me when he has fully considered the matter. My dear Sir — I have looked over your son's paper carefully, and I think it very ingenious, — certainly very remarkable for his years ; and, 1 believe, substantially new.
On the latter point I have refeiTed it to my friend, Professor Kelland, for his opinion. Unfortunately these ovals appear to be curves of a very high and intractable order, so that possibly the elegant method of description may not lead to a corresponding simiDlicity in investigating their properties. But that is not the present point. If you wish it, 1 think that the simplicity and elegance of the method would entitle it to be brought before the Royal Society.
Forbes at the College and con- versed about the ovals. Forbes's House, 3 Park Place, to Tea, and to discourse on the ovals. Came home at A success- ful visit. Hay's paper on ovals. Hay's paper and machine for drawing ovals, etc. Forbes at College and saw Mr. Adie about report on Mr. Professor Forbes gave acct. Met with very great attention and approba- tion generally. The result of the attempt thus eagerly pursued, as com- municated by Professor Forbes that evening, is embodied in the Proceedings of the Edinburgh Royal Society, vol.
Monday, Qth Aiwil The following communications were read: On the Description of Oval Curves, and those having a plurality of Poci. Clerk Maxwell, junior, with Remarks by Professor Forbes. Communicated by Professor Forbes. Clerk Maxwell ingeniously suggests the extension of the common theory of the foci of conic sections to curves of a higher degree of complication, in the following manner: The author devised a simple mechanical means, by the wrapping of a thread round pins, for producing these curves. Further, the author regards curves of the first kind as constituting a particular class of curves of the second kind, two or more foci coinciding in one, a focus in which two strings meet being considered a double focus ; when three strings meet a treble focus, etc.
Professor Forbes observed that the equation to curves of the first class are easily found, having the form — CHAP. Maxwell had already observed that, when one of the foci was at an infinite distance or the thread moved parallel to itself, and was confined, in respect of length, "by the edge of a board , a curve resembling an ellipse was traced ; from which property Professor Forbes was led first to infer the identity of the oval with the Cartesian oval, which is well known to have this property. But the simplest analogy of all is that derived from the method of description, r and r being the radients to any point of the curve from the two foci.
If we denote, by the looxoer of either focus, the number of strings leading to it by Mr. Maxwell's construction, and if one of the foci be removed to an infinite distance, — if the powers of the two foci be equal, the curve is a parabola ; if the power of the nearer focus be greater than the other, the curve is an ellipse ; if the power of the infinitely distant focus be the greater, the curve is a hyperbola.
The first case evidently corresponds to the reflection of parallel rays to a focus, the velocity being unchanged after reflection ; the second, to the refraction of parallel rays to a focus in a dense medium in which light moves slower ; the third case, to refraction into a rarer medium. The Ovals of Descartes were described in his Geometry, where he has also given a mechanical method of describing one of them, but only in a particular case, and the method is less simple than Mr.
The demonstration of the optical properties was given by Newton in the Frincijna, Book i. It probably has not been suspected that so easy and elegant a method exists of describing these curves by the use of a thread and pins when- ever the powers of the foci are commensurable.
For instance, the curve, Fig. This was the beginning of the lifelong friendship between Clerk Maxwell and James D. Maxwell's gratitude to all from whom he had received any help or stimulus was imperishable. Scott left Edinburgh in the summer of The work of his cousin, who was uow a rising artist, still interested him. An entry in the father's Diary, December 5, , has reference to this: Either in this or the following year I remember his raising the question, Whether it was not possible to determine mathematically the curve of the waves on a particular shore, so as to represent them with perfect truth in a picture.
After contributing to the Proceedings of the Edinburgh jEt. Instead of this, he simply completed his course at school. His inventions may perhaps have interfered a little with his resrular studies — for he missed the Mathematical medal in — but he was one of the few of the class which he had joined in who continued at the Academy until And when he left, although still younger than his competitors by about a twelvemonth, he was not only first in mathematics and English, but came very near to being first in Latin.
Nor have I ever heard him wish that it had been otherwise. On the contrary, he has repeatedly said to me in later ; years that to make out the meaning of an author with no help excepting grammar and dictionary which was our case is one of the best means for training the mind. Some of his school exercises in Latin prose and verse are still extant, and, like everything which he did, are stamped with his peculiar character.
One of the teachers was apt to annoy our youth- ful taste by a literal exactness in translating the Greek particles, which would have pleased some more recent scholars. Maxwell expressed our feelings on this subject in a few lines, of which I can only recall the beginning: In September I made my first visit to Glenlair. It was a time of perpetual gladness, but the particulars are hardly worth recording. Blues introduces the Workshop Series guitars,.
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