; among them was Jupiter.
"Professor Adams tells me that in Wales genealogical charts go so far
back that about half-way between the beginning and the present day you
find this record: 'About this time the world was created'!
"November 2. At lunch to-day Dr. Whewell was more interesting than I had
seen him before. He asked me about Laura Bridgman, and said that he knew
a similar case. He contended, in opposition to Mrs. Airy and myself,
that loss of vision was preferable to loss of hearing, because it shut
one out less from human companionship.
"Dr. Whewell's self-respect and immense self-esteem led him to
imperiousness of manner which touches the border of discourtesy. He
loves a good joke, but his jests are serious. He writes verses that are
touchingly beautiful, but it is difficult to believe, in his presence,
that he writes them. Mrs. Airy said that Dr. Whewell and I _riled_ each
other!
"I was at an evening party, and the Airy boys, young men of eighteen and
twenty, were present. They stood the whole time, occasionally leaning
against a table or the piano, in their blue silk gowns. I urged them to
sit. 'Of course not,' they said; 'no undergraduate sits in the master's
presence!'
"I went to three services on 'Scarlet Sunday,' for the sake of seeing
all the sights.
"The costumes of Cambridge and Oxford are very amusing, and show, more
than anything I have seen, the old-fogyism of English ways.
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