Free Manse Keig
by Whitehouse
Aberdeenshire
27th Aug. 1867
My Dear Sir,
I am glad to be able to tell you that we reached home safely in the end of last week. We had on the whole favourable weather and a pleasant journey, and my father is I think decidedly better of his trip, though the smoke and bustle of London did not agree with him particularly well.[2]
I find the weather here in Aberdeenshire very different from that of Bonn — far more so than I could have supposed. But indeed the summer here has been very bad. For example, strawberries and peas are just beginning to be in season and the cherries are not ripe yet. The harvest can hardly be ripe for a month.
I had half hoped to see Professor Robertson in London and deliver your message to him. He was however in Scotland for his vacation as we passed through London. He is still I learn working on Hobbes[3] and proposes to publish a complete account of the works of that philosopher. It does not say much for our activity in Philosophy that this task has not yet been performed for one of our most important philosophers.
I have thought that you might perhaps like to have my photograph which I accordingly enclose. It was taken some time ago but is I think a tolerable likeness.
It would be a very great pleasure to me to have your photograph if you have a spare copy that you could give me as a memento of the very pleasant summer I spent in your house and — what was not the least pleasant feature of my residence in Bonn — the instruction I received from your lectures.
I hope to write you from Edinburgh in the course of the winter and tell you how I am getting on especially in Philosophy.
Meantime believe me
very truly yours
Wm Robertson Smith
[1] ULB Bonn Autographensammlung
[2] After much hesitation, WPS agreed to join his son on a tour through the south of Germany, which he greatly enjoyed despite the travel hardship of those days.
[3] Croom Robertson’s book on Hobbes was eventually published in 1886, by W. Blackwood and Sons.