his father, what books he had read, and replied with a pretty long list,
including Quintilian and Grotius. Mr. Dale inquired what "light books"
he was taking to Oxford: "Saussure, Humboldt, and other works on natural
philosophy and geology," he answered. "Then he asked if I ever read any
of the modern fashionable novels; on this point I thought he began to
look positive, so I gave him a negative, with the exception of Bulwer's,
and now and then a laughable one of the Theodore Hook's or Captain
Marryat's." And so, with much excellent advice about exercise and sleep,
and the way to win the Newdigate, he parted from Mr. Dale.

This Christmas was marked by his first introduction to the scientific
world. Mr. Charlesworth, of the British Museum, invited him to a meeting
of the Geological Society (January 4, 1837), with promise of
introduction to Buckland and Lyell. The meeting, as he wrote, was
"amusing and interesting, and very comfortable for frosty weather, as
Mr. Murchison got warm and Mr. Greenau _(sic)_ witty. The warmth,
however, got the better of the wit."

The Meteorological Society also claimed his attention, and in this month
he contributed a paper which "Richard [Fall] says will frighten them out
of their meteorological wits, containing six close-written folio pages,
and having, at its conclusion, a sting in its tail, the very agreeable
announcement that it only commences the subject."




CHAPTER VI

A LOVE-STORY (1836-1839)