Free Manse, Keig, Whitehouse
20th July 1868
My Dear Sir,
I wrote to you from Edinburgh about the beginning of the year; but as I have received no answer from you I begin to fear either that my letter has never reached you or that your reply has been lost. So I think it better to write again rather than that you should think me forgetful.
I reached the end of last Session very comfortably but without anything worth mentioning taking place. There was only one prize in our class, and it I competed for and gained; chiefly, by the aid of the German books I had got from the Bonn library last summer.
At the End of the Session I went for two months to the Island of Bute in the Firth of Clyde — a beautiful place. While there I taught two students of the University of Edinburgh — “coached them” as we say for their classical degree. I did not like this work at all which I only undertook to oblige a fellow student[2], who had engaged to do the work & was anxious to get away for a couple of months.[3] However I had only four hours teaching and so got the greater part of the day to myself to enjoy the scenery & to attend to my own studies. Bute is a very small Island about ten miles long and five broad, nestling at the foot of the Argyle & Arran mountains. The Island is thus so sheltered that there is almost no winter there. In fact so mild is the weather that in the grounds of the Marquis of Bute at Mountstuart the laurels that line the avenue have grown into great trees, covered while I was there with white blossoms.
My lodging looked out upon the firth which at that point was so shut in by capes and islands that it looked like a large inland lake running far up into the Highlands.
The place I lived at is called Ascog and is near the town of Rothesay which was formerly a royal possession and still contains the ruins of the royal Castle.
If you have read Scott’s “Fair Maid of Perth” you will perhaps remember that the heir to the Scottish throne bore the title of Duke of Rothesay.
I returned home about a month ago and am now working pretty busily both at theology & philosophy. One of our professors strongly advised me to combine the two so far and study Biblical Psychology — of course not in the fantastic way of Delitzsch — but to examine what were the psychological presuppositions of the writers of the Bible.[4] This advice was given to me in consequence of a psychological essay on Prophecy which I wrote as a Class-exercise; in which I tried to show that if a prophet retained his consciousness, ordinary psychological laws would regulate his prophecy in a way not generally considered in this country, and not exactly such as German theologians suppose.
In my last [letter] I asked you one or two questions about my reading in Philosophy. Allow me to repeat two of these. What good books would you recommend as giving the latest advances in Ethics[?] And what is the best manual of formal Logic? In inductive Logic I suppose we are before you.
Professor Flint[5] has just been defeated at Edinburgh, where he hoped to secure the chair of Moral Philosophy. Flint’s party succeeded in ruining the chances of Sir Alexr. Grant (who however has been made principal in room of Sir D. Brewster); but were themselves thrown out by a coalition between Grant’s supporters, and the electors from the Town Council who know nothing of Philosophy and so could not be got to vote for Grant, but were willing to support against Flint, a candidate who had the advantage of being a dissenting minister (!!!) but who was also preferred by the more enlightened electors as a man of original power. This is a rather confusing narrative I fear; but you will at least see how absurdly Professors are chosen at Edinburgh where a grocer or any other “Philister” in the town council may turn an election. I am not at all confident myself, that Calderwood[6] is better than Flint and no one (except the Town councillors) thinks him equal to Grant or Stirling.
We have had a most intense & alarming drought this summer, to make up for the rains of last season. For seven weeks we had scarcely a drop of rain; but happily last week a change took place and though the harvest must be very poor things are looking more hopeful.
I got a little German talk last week (for the first time since I came home) with a German Jew who came round selling lithographs[7] — I got on tolerably well I think, for tho’ I have not had any opportunities of talking in this country, I continue to read German daily. Indeed when I am busy at Theology and Philosophy I read more German than English.
You will I am sure be glad to hear that I hope to get an appointment in the University of Edinburgh next year. You must know that the Classes in our universities are so large in proportion to the number of Professors that each Professor has an assistant, who examines Class-papers and sometimes lectures to part of the Class. I have been promised the Assistant-professorship of Natural Philosophy if I apply next April.[8] The work will probably average from one to two hours a day for five months of the year and the salary is £100. This is pretty good because I can at the same time attend the Theological classes as a Student. Perhaps too there may be some work to do in Summer with extra pay.
I wish to refer to you a question on which people here take quite a different view from that which, I think, you told me to be correct. It is generally said here that every Prussian is at one time of his life a soldier. My own impression is that only so many are taken as suffice to keep up the numbers of the army and that many men escape altogether. Is this correct?[9]
Have you now completed your work on Spinoza? Have you any book in hand at present? I hope you are now Professor Ordinarius as I heard from Machenhauer some time ago that Brandis’ place was still vacant.
With kindest regards and best wishes to yourself and Mrs Schaarschmidt, in which my father joins, and with love to Fritz & Hetta[10] who I fear have now quite forgotten me
Believe me
Yours sincerely
Wm Robertson Smith
P.S. I don’t think I ever mentioned that Mamma tried Mrs Schaarschmidt’s receipts last summer with partial success — I mean the preserving of fruit. Some bottles were good, others failed. This year we hoped to have plenty of cherries but the squirrels have devoured them all![11] Have you succeeded in making Marmalade?
WRS
[1] ULB Bonn Autographensammlung
[2] John Sutherland Black.
[3] See WRS’s rather unkind remarks about the McKellar “students” in 1868-06-01.
[4] WRS betrays his scepticism for Delitzsch, for example, in his EB9 article on “Eve” (vol. vii, p.733) where he notes that Delitzsch “soberly” believed Adam to have had “a rib more than his descendants”.
[5] Flint, Robert (1838–1910): Scottish theologian and professor of Moral Philosophy, Political Economy and Divinity at St. Andrews. Before this appointment he ministered a few years. Flint became professor of divinity at Edinburgh from 1876 to 1903 and was contributor to the EB9.
[6] Calderwood, Henry (1830–1897): had been appointed to the chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University in 1868. Like Smith, he was anti-Hegelian and, as a staunch United Presbyterian, became eminent for endeavouring (in opposition to Alexander Bain) to demonstrate the metaphysical nature of the human mind. His election as a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1869 would serve to explain his support for WRS in this instance.
[7] WRS’s sister Alice Thiele describes this event in her reminiscences Children of the Manse, p. 43–45: “…One day an old Jewish pedlar from Germany arrived at our door selling pictures. This was such an unusual event that Lucy and I were allowed to choose one each. I picked a colour print of Martin Luther, who was a hero of mine. Will was at home at the time and when we called him in, he embarked on a lengthy discussion in German, much to the old fellow’s delight since my eldest brother was the first person he had met in Aberdeenshire who could speak his language…”.
[8] In fact WRS became P. G. Tait’s assistant in November, 1868, at the start of the academic session.
[9] In 1813 general compulsory military service was established in Prussia by General Scharnhorst after the Napoleonic Wars.
[10] See 1867-05-12.
[11] See COTM, p. 11.