TO C. J. MONRO, Esq.

                                                        18 India Street, Edinburgh, 19th Feb. /55.

My steps will be no more by the reedy and crooked  till Easter term. My father's recovery is retarded by the   frosty weather, though we have got up an etherial mildness here by means of a good fire and a towel hung up wet   at the other end of the room, together with an internal exhibition of nitric ether.

I wrote to Mackenzie about putting a respectable man in my rooms as a stopper to Cat's Hall men, Manus and   Boy Joneses, but I have not heard of his success. I have no time at present for anything, except looking through   novels, etc., and finding passages which will not offend my father to read to him. He strongly objects to  new-fangled books, and knows the old by heart. But he likes the Essays in Intervals of Business, cause why,   they have not too many words. The frost here has lasted long, and I am beginning to make use of it. I get an uncle  to take my place in the afternoon, and I rush off to Lochend or Duddingston. I have not yet succeeded in skating  on one foot for an indefinite time and getting up speed by rising and sinking at the bends of the path; but I attribute   any failure to want of faith, for I can get up speed for a single bend, only I always slip at a certain critical turning.   However, I have only been 3 days, and I may do it yet. My plans are not fixt, but I think it will be some while  before my father is on his pins again, and when he is I intend to look after him still, but do a private streak of work, for I will soon be in a too much bottled up condition of mathematics, from which even mental collapse
     would be a relief. I have no intention of doing a Newton or any elegant mathematics. I have a few thoughts on  top-spinning and sensation generally, and a kind of dim outline of Cambridge palavers, tending to shadow forth the  influence of mathematical training on opinion and speculation.   I suppose when my father can move I will see him out of this eastern clime and safe located in Gallovidian   westnesses, and so be up in Cam. before the beginning of next term.  I should like to know how many kept baccalaurean weeks go to each of these terms, and when they begin and  end. Overhaul the calendar, and when found make note of.
     Is Pomeroy up, or where? This is the 2nd time of asking.