69, Albert Street, Regent's Park,

London, N.W.

Jan. 5/57.

I had my first lecture to-day. I got on satisfactorily to myself and I hope interested the men. I shall like my lectures better now for I am coming to electricity which is a more interesting subject to lecture on than mechanics.

At Jermyn St. I got my quarter's salary and found a letter from the Abbé Moigno. It was written to induce me to interest myself in an improvement in printing from a photograph, due to a M. Poitevin (if I have read the name right). The Abbé said that they were endeavouring to place me on the list of candidates for the Corresponding Membership of the French Academy at the coming election. He also called my attention to a paper in Poggendorff by a M. Holtzmann, who had repeated with some variation my experiments on the polarisation of diffracted light, but had arrived at an opposite conclusion as to the direction, of vibration. I went to the Athenseum and looked over Holtzmann's paper. I had not time to read it carefully through as my lecture was coming on. I think I must repeat Holtzmann's experiments and my own, before I can come to a mature judgment on the matter.

…It looked funny to see mathematical formulae in a letter from you. Don't be too ambitious for you will not understand these things. They go much beyond Euclid and Algebra, which will be quite enough for you in the way of pure mathematics; but you may be interested by chemistry and physics.