Edinburgh, 26th Oct., 1869
My Dear Mamma,
I don’t think anything particular has happened since Friday[2] — at least to me for no doubt Nell or Alice will write about their affairs.[3] O course the great Edinburgh event was the opening of St George’s.[4] In the forenoon Candlish preached to a fair Congregation — i.e. seats had to be put in but no one stood. I got in with a Ticket received from Mrs Blackadder.[5]
In the afternoon I went to hear Dykes[6] with little hope of getting in, but because Rae[7] whom I fell in with in the forenoon proposed to go. There was a fearful crush when the doors were opened to non-ticket holders — ladies screaming — people almost borne off their feet, &c. A good many I think went away after forcing their way into the entrance rooms and we were tempted to do so also; but by judiciously catching the beadle got along with a few favoured persons to a sort of platform behind the pulpit where we squatted on a carpet! The sermon was beautiful in language and feeling but rather poor in thought not equal to Candlish’s in the forenoon but more attractive. Candlish was on the 126 Psalm,[8] Dykes on M[atthew] xviii. 10–14.[9]
I was at Tait’s on Saturday evening and the girls at the Brakenridges. Dr B. has been applying for a place in the Hospital. It was to be settled yesterday but we haven’t heard yet. I have been meeting a lot of our students the last few days. Bell I saw on Saturday. He liked Germany but does not seem to have become at all German in his views.
There was a splendid arch across the heavens yesterday of exceeding brightness. Tait went up to the University to examine it with the spectroscope and distinguished at least two lines (This is for Papa). Tell Papa also that Tait and Steele[10] is almost out of print and a new edition is to be got ready. Does he remember the error of which he so often speaks? If so I should be glad as I doubt if I can find it myself.
All well! Your affectionate son,
Wm. Robertson Smith
[1] CUL ADD 7449 C160a TS.
[2] The letter was written on the following Tuesday.
[3] The two eldest Smith daughters, Ellen and Alice, were with WRS in Edinburgh. Nell had been with him during the previous academic session (late October to Easter) but this was Alice’s first experience of living away from home with her brother and she wrote enthusiastically of her experiences in Edinburgh in her memoirs (see COTM). Both went to school there, attending the Charlotte Square Institution for Young Ladies, run by Thomas Oliphant.
[4] St George’s Free Church (now St George’s West) was formally opened and dedicated on Tuesday, October 26.
[5] Wife of the Alford elder and family friend, Mr Blackadder, who lived in Abercromby Place, Edinburgh.
[6] Dykes, James Oswald (b.1835): acted as Robert Candlish’s assistant from 1861. He later resigned and moved for health reasons to Australia but returned in 1869 to London where he became Principal of the English Presbyterian College there.
[7] Probably Rae, George M. D.D. (b.1840 at Udny, Aberdeenshire); educated at Aberdeen University and Free Church College; ordained 1867 he became a missionary at Madras.
[8] No doubt the text from Ps. 126 was: “The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad”.
[9] The parable of the lost sheep.
[10] Tait’s earliest publication was Dynamics of a Particle, begun in collaboration with W. J. Steele when both men were Fellows of Peterhouse College, Cambridge. Known familiarly as “Tait and Steele”, it was published in 1856 after Steele’s premature death.