Mrs Auld[2]
6 Castle Street
Edinburgh
10th Dec., 1866
My Dear Archibald,
One of the most disagreeable features of the Hall here is that a good deal of writing is required. A natural reaction leads me to shirk epistolary correspondence. This, and the fact that we are only just shaken into order — a process which takes much longer here that [sic] Aberdeen[3] — will I hope serve as my excuse for not writing to you sooner.
The Classes here are conducted in a very loose and irregular manner compared with those in Aberdeen. The professor seldom enters the room till ten minutes after the hour and it took a month to get the roll made up. I do not know my place in it yet, for the professors do not take the trouble to arrange it alphabetically. Thus Davidson[4] & Bannerman[5] call it in different order & Duns not at all.
Duns’ Class (Nat. Hist.) is, you will be sorry to hear, so conducted as to be an unmitigated nuisance.[6] In the first place it is impossible as a rule to find out what the lecture is about. Then the specimens never accompany the lecture but are given out a few days before or the day after. In the next place the spelling on the board is execrable, and the lectures are full of technicalities that are never written down or explained. To crown it all we have popular lectures on a Thursday crowded with bad metaphors & quotations from Tennyson, Ruskin &c.
I cannot judge of the Museum myself but it is very small — at least the part I have been in is small. But I believe there are some other rooms connected with Duns’ private rooms. These I never was in. You will be able to judge of it if you manage to run up here at Christmas. Let me know if you think you can manage this. I believe Ellen us going to Glasgow for a few days & then of course I would have a spare bed.[7]
Make my excuses to Willie [McDonald] for not answering a letter he write me some time ago. How is he keeping and what is he doing? Do you know I have not had a word from Henderson since the Ferguson[8] Exam. This is rather bad after all the trouble I had with him in the summer. He might at least have let me know how he did. Traill is here in a W.S. office. He is to be an advocate and W.S. I may inform you that his fees are much higher and hours much lower than yours — he is so busy that I never see him unless I go to his office & walk up to the University with him.[9]
I lodge on the same flat with Lindsay[10] who took the Phil. Ferguson[11] this year. He is a Free church minister’s son and is a year before me. He had the Hamilton[12] last year and is a very able fellow and a splendid metaphysician… [13]
[1] CUL ADD 7449 C063 MS
[2] Smith’s first landlady in Edinburgh.
[3] WRS intends “than at”.
[4] Davidson, Andrew B. (1831–1902), the eminent but reticent Professor of Hebrew at New College, whose teaching had a very marked influence on Robertson Smith.
[5] Bannerman, James (1807–1868): Professor of Apologetics and Pastoral Theology at New College until his death in 1868.
[6] Duns, John (1818–1909): Professor of Natural Science at New College. Smith’s contempt for Duns’ teaching competence and scientific knowledge seems to have been justified, according to other contemporary accounts.
[7] Smith, Ellen (Nellie) Deans (1851–1917): the fifth child of the Smith family, Ellen had the role of big sister to her younger siblings. She accompanied WRS to Edinburgh and attended school there from 1866 — as did her younger sister, Alice from 1869–70 — and then to Germany in 1869 and 1871. After an unhappy engagement to a German student, she married (1876) an F.C. minister, James Hamilton Allan, then assistant to WPS. The couple had no offspring and Allan proved to be a weakly character, frequently unable to perform his ministerial duties. After the couple had settled on the island of Yell in the Shetlands, Ellen was forced to undertake much of her husband’s pastoral work (including preaching) but found it rewarding nevertheless. Several years after her husband’s early death at Sellafirth in Yell, she returned to Aberdeen where she continued with charitable work. [COTM]
[8] Ferguson was a wealthy Glasgow merchant of that name who endowed the Ferguson scholarships in both mathematics and philosophy, open to competition by graduates of all four Scottish universities. WRS had gained the Maths award in 1866, though his advisers in Aberdeen had recommended he compete for the Philosophy scholarship, which went instead to Thomas M. Lindsay.
[9] WRS refers here to mutual friends. Like Archie McDonald, the unidentified Traill was a law student but intending to practise in Edinburgh, where the title W.S. [Writer to the Signet] denoted membership of a professional body of some prestige, while the term “advocate” is in general the Scottish equivalent of barrister in England. In Aberdeen, however, the corresponding professional body for solicitors was and is, somewhat confusingly, the Society of Advocates. Edinburgh legal fees were predictably higher than those elsewhere in Scotland.
[10] Lindsay, Thomas M. (1843–1914): who was a year ahead of WRS at New College, became a close friend, debating rival and staunch supporter. Like Robertson Smith, he was invited to contribute early articles for EB9, amongst these “Apologetics” and “Christianity”. In 1872 Lindsay became professor of Church History at Glasgow F.C. College and was appointed Principal there in 1902. He is best remembered for his writings on Luther and the Reformation.
[11] Ferguson scholarships in both mathematics and philosophy were open to competition by graduates of all four Scottish universities. WRS had gained the Maths award in 1866, though his advisers in Aberdeen had recommended he compete for the Philosophy scholarship, which went as indicated to Lindsay.
[12] Another noted university scholarship to which WRS makes further reference in later letters.
[13] The remainder of this letter is missing.