TO LEWIS CAMPBELL, ESQ.
Cambridge, 9th June 1851.
I find I owe you one letter this term.
I intended to
write three days
ago, but I am now refreshed by classical papers, and
disburdened
of half the subjects of examination.
On Friday we had Euclid, on Saturday
Greek,—cram on
both subjects; to-day
Ajax and Tacitus translations. I did no composition, but did
various
readings, strongly preferring certain of them for obvious reasons.
I find that 4 hours Euclid is worse
than 2 3-hour
papers of cram, though
I sent up much more cram than Euclid This of itself
shows
that disburdening cram is not like grinding, out Mathematics. M—— in
the
Plato cram, writing a comparison of Cynics and Platonists,
said that Platonism was a real live thing, but Cynicism was sleepy, and
that even in its greatest ornament, Diogenes, the view of
the
universe was contracted to a front look-out from a
wash-tub,
and the summum bonum reduced to sunning one's self with eyes shut and
buttons
open. This was to let
off his jaw on first setting down, but he let it in among his papers,
and could not get it out again.
Excuse my square sentences. I have
spent my curves on
Tacitus, and I
must now proceed to Trig. Write.—-Yrs.