TO LEWIS CAMPBELL, Esq.

                                                                          Trin. Coll., 22d April 1856.

     I have had many things to attend to lately, which have kept me from writing to you. I am glad you wrote to me. I   got a very kind letter from your mother and Bob, for which you must thank them meanwhile. My uncles, Robert   and Albert, stayed with me till the 15th. That day I got a letter from Cambridge about college matters, and so I   had to set to work at home more vigorously. George Wedderburn came in the afternoon, and we had two hard days' work of various kinds.

     On Friday he and I left Glenlair, and I got here on Saturday, and since yesterday have been lecturing.

     All things are as if I had been up after a common vacation, and I see them all the same as they used to be. I have   got back among chapels and halls and scholarships, and all the regular routine, with now and then some   expression of condolence, which is all that strangers can or ought to afford. Neither they nor I enter on a subject   which must be misunderstood; but it seems to me that while all the old subjects are as interesting to me as ever, I  talk about them without understanding the men I talk to.

     I have two or three stiff bits of work to get through this term here, and I hope to overtake them. When the term is   over I must go home and pay diligent attention to everything there, so that I may learn what to do.

     The first thing I must do is carry on my father's work of personally superintending everything at home, and for   doing this I have his regular accounts of what used to be done, and the memories of all the people, who tell me   everything they know. As for my own pursuits, it was my father's wish, and it is mine, that I should go on with   them. We used to settle that what I ought to be engaged in was some occupation of teaching, admitting of long  vacations for being at home; and when my father heard of the Aberdeen proposition he very much approved. I  have not heard anything very lately, but I believe my name is not yet put out of question in the Ld.  Advocate's book. If I get back to Glenlair I shall have the mark of my father's work on everything I see. Much of   them is still his, and I must be in some degree his steward to take care of them. I trust that the knowledge of his   plans may be a guide to me, and never a constraint.

     I am glad to hear of your [Oxford] W[orking Men's] Coll[ege]. The preparatory school here has at once got from  seventy to ninety scholars all in earnest, and they have had to migrate to a larger schoolhouse.

     We might consider of you and Bob and W. Cay coming for a quiet week or two to Glenlair in summer, if all goes  well. Bob is with Willie and Charlie now touring.

     I am getting a new top turned to show my class the motion of bodies of various forms about a fixed point. I expect  to get very neat results from it, and agreeing with theory of course.