| Description | He is pleased with Herschel's letter giving an account of his work and travels. He has been able to follow Herschel by using maps. Airy has completed his course at the Ransome factory at Ipswich and he hopes to be trained as a civil engineer now. The weather has been good and both farmers and merry-makers have enjoyed it after the last year's miserable summer. Airy has taken up cricket and writes to Alick [Alexander Stewart Herschel], who is jolly and who concerns himself with scientific questions. Alick has been organising observations of meteors, and Airy has sent him twenty or thirty sightings. Except for Wilfrid, the Airy family have been in the lakes of Cumberland, where the weather has been abominable. They are thinking of going to Manchester, where 'the Gov' [George Biddell Airy] is giving a lecture on eclipses, and on the total eclipse, the subject of a great expedition to Spain. Wilfrid saw the eclipse there under favourable conditions. He gives news of acquaintances, including Villiers, who has lost his father, [Henry Montagu Villiers] the Bishop of Durham: 'Punch' quipped about his awarding a rich living to his son-in-law, a Mr. Cheese. Villiers is now married. |