Edinburgh
18th Dec. 1868
My Dear Father,
My last letter was so short that I must try to supplement it today; tho’ I have very little to say. I have been very busy this week mainly with my second batch of papers which are all very bad & therefore very hard to value properly.
There was also an Exam. in the Ladies’ class on Saturday. I fortunately have not been asked to take these papers; but Tait says they are rather above the average of College papers. Lindsay says that Fraser’s[2] Ladies have given considerably better papers than the Logic Class at the University gives.
I saw Lindsay I should say yesterday. He has had another bad attack of Asthma & is not attending his classes — nor does he get any work done for some time. Going backwards my next item is that on Tuesday I went up to the University about sunset to see Jupiter through Tait’s large Telescope – a Newtonian Reflector. We saw the belts and moons beautifully but tried in vain to get the instrument to bear (through the limited field given by a window) on any other interesting object such as a double star.[3]
I saw Dr Brackenridge[4] on Saturday & again in the Philosophical yesterday. He is hard at work canvassing for admission to the sick children’s hospital & has good hopes of success.
I don’t know if I mentioned that a fortnight ago McGregor gave out a long list of subjects for exercises — these subjects were certainly far better than the usual N.C. Stamp but had the fault of being too hard for a short paper. I wrote on the doctrine of the Radical Evil in Kant. A day or two ago McG. stopped me as I was going out & said “I don’t think you’ve brought much light out of that smoke of Kant. I don’t think there is much light in it”. I quite agree with him; in fact my object was to show that Kant’s deistical view is quite confused and contradictory.
McPhail[5] was inducted at Pilrig yesterday. The Edinburgh people seem disposed to receive him very favourably. I think I told you that I had been calling on Davidson & that he told me I shld. not lay much weight on my blowing up from Candlish – Curiously most men about the N.C. do not think I got at all a bad criticism. I find I shall be before Candlish again as he is to take the Sermon now.
I think this is pretty much all — exct. that I had a note from Moir[6] this week — he is keeping rather better apparently.
Your Aff. Son,
Wm Robertson Smith
P.S. As I wish my little parcel to reach Mamma free, I hope she will let me know what she paid for carriage.[7]
[1] CUL ADD 7449 C106 MS
[2] Alexander Campbell Fraser, Professor of Logic at Edinburgh University from 1856 to 1891. The introduction of “Ladies’ classes” at this period was a tentative step towards the provision of higher education for women.
[3] WPS effectively communicated his own interest in astronomy to all his children, as his daughter Alice describes in COTM.
[4] WRS ‘s habitual spelling of the family’s name as ‘Brakenridge’ has been silently changed throughout to the more customary Brackenridge.
[5] McPhail, James Calder (b.1820): was Free Church minister at Aberdeen East from 1849 until his translation to Pilrig in 1868 [AFC].
[6] Unidentified.
[7] By this time, WRS was able to show his generosity towards both parents. It was around 1868 that he presented his mother with a sewing-machine and the “little parcel” may be a facetious reference to this.