TO MRS. MAXWELL.
20th March 1871.
There are two parties about
the professorship.
One wants popular lectures, and the other cares more
for
experimental work. I think there should be a gradation—popular lectures
and rough experiments for the masses; real
experiments
for real students; and laborious experiments for first-rate men like
Trotter
and Stuart and Strutt.
TO MRS. MAXWELL.
Athenæum, 22d March 1871.
I also got a first-rate letter from Monro about
colour, and the Arab
words for it (I suppose he studied them in Algeria). They call horses
of
a smutty yellow colour "green." The "pale" horse in Revelation is
generally
transcribed green elsewhere, the word being applied to grass,
etc.
But the three green things in the Arabic dictionary are "gold,
wine,
and meat," which is a very hard aying.