TO PROFESSOR LEWIS CAMPBELL.
11 Scroope Terrace,
Cambridge, 5th January 1878.
It is more than a month that
I have had your
letter lying by me. I am glad you like Chrystal. His departure is a
great
loss to the laboratory, as it is difficult to find any one to take up
heavy
work. W. D. Niven (brother of the competitor) is going in for a
heavy
piece of work on conduction of heat in gases. I am no judge of Greek
plays,
but I think that your success in choruses is fully equal to that in
dialogue,
considering the greater difficulty, not only in the
interpretation,
but in guessing the kind of effect, musical, rhythmical, rhetorical,
poetical,
and
pictorial, which was aimed at in the delivery
of the chorus.
We have all been conversing
on the telephone.
Garnett recognized the voice of a man who called by chance.
But
the phonograph will preserve to posterity the voices of our best
speakers
and singers. See Nature of Jan. 3d.