During this year the rheumatic knee still troubled him, and a visit to Harrogate to try the waters there did not produce much permanent benefit. The summer was spent in Ayrshire, but was saddened by the sudden death of a favourite niece, who had been almost a daughter of the house during the long years when the family consisted only of boys, and was on holiday with her uncle and aunt at the time of the acute illness which caused her death.
In 1907 his eldest son was married, and there is a charming letter written to him on his wedding tour, with much wise advice about matrimony, mingled with personal experiences. Among other things the writer says:—“When I went on my honeymoon I took a geological hammer with me, but the geology did not count for much. I think the hammer was used chiefly for digging up roots and ferns for your mother, or for knocking off bits of rock that were covered with gay lichens.” The young couple had gone to Devonshire, and this sent the father back to Herrick, and that writer’s description of “dull Devonshire.”
In the autumn Prof. Geikie had the pleasure of meeting Prof. Stevenson of New York, who came to London for the Centenary Celebration of the Geological Society there. At the end of November he writes to his eldest son, saying:—“My work at College is easy this winter, for I feel in much better health than I have done for two or three years. My lameness is practically cured, and I begin to think that I may yet be able to go with May to her first ball, and dance a reel with the nicest-looking girl in the room—as usual.”
In the spring of 1908 Prof. and Mrs Geikie and their daughter, together with a niece, went to Portugal, which they all enjoyed greatly. In the early part of this year also the first grandchild, a little girl, was born. Another event of the year was the translation of Structural Geology into French.
The correspondence with Prof. Stevenson was still going on, and there was an interesting letter from the latter in August. He was contemplating retiral from his professorship, while Prof. Geikie had no wish to give up his own post, and the two discussed the question of the desirable age for the event. Prof. Stevenson wished to have leisure to complete some private work of his own, and his letter contains the following interesting passage:—
You were a fortunate man: you struck out into an unexplored field and you lived to correct your own errors. Yours became the monumental monograph on the Glacial period: the volume is in all libraries and it never can be ignored safely by even the shrewdest and most unscrupulous of borrowers. A merciful Providence directed your steps toward a problem of world-wide interest. Your great-grandchildren will see your work quoted in all standard treatises. Like the rest of us you have brought many loads of bricks for the geological edifice, but, unlike most of us, you have shared in the work of construction.
The summer of this year was spent at an east coast watering-place, where the weather was wet and cold. Prof. Geikie was frankly bored, and expresses himself in a letter to his eldest son with a vividness which will appeal to all who have had a similar experience. The letter is long—its composition was doubtless the occupation of a hopelessly bad day—and we shall quote only some extracts:—“Our rooms are so small we are constantly tumbling over each other and gnashing our teeth at each other.... I have got to loathe that beach, and to hate the sound of the waves, and the smells of the village, and the raucous voices of the natives and their sluttish ways. I have been reading a very interesting book upon the cemeteries of Etruria. Some of the painted sepulchres must be quite cheerful, and I really think if one could hire such a tomb for the summer it would be better than taking a house in Caledonia stern and wild. Of course we should only sleep in the sepulchre—a good lamp would give all the light required. We should select one on a hill-side near to which no motors could possibly come, quiet and retired, with only sheep and cattle for our neighbours.... From the doorway of the tomb we could feast our eyes on unrivalled scenery, bask in the sun, scent the soft zephyrs with the aroma of tobacco, and envy no man.... The geology would interest me, but what I would chiefly enjoy would be blue skies, warm sunshine, absence of whirlwinds and tornadoes, with none of that blighting easterly haar. No wonder the majority of Scotsmen are Calvinists and Radicals—their country is enough to make them that—and worse, if it were possible.”
A little later in the letter, however, he admits to having had one really good day, when he and Mrs Geikie made an excursion together:—“We had a bag loaded up with grub, kettle, teapot, spirit lamp, etc., the weight of which was not inconsiderable. I would have dropped it, but your mother was so happy with the prospect of tea by the sad seashore, that my heart melted within me. (I must say, however, that my whole body was in a melting condition before we got back.)”
In 1909 his second grandchild was born, another girl, which brings from the grandfather the remark:—“Girls are far the nicest, especially when a father gets old and wants some one to bring him his slippers, or to fill and light his pipe. Boys are of no use in a family; they only make noises, damage the furniture, harass their mothers—and, in short, they are the very devil.” Writing in March to his son, he returns to the question of his resignation, saying:—“For myself, I don’t feel like resigning just yet! I can walk like any other Christian, and enjoy my work as much as ever: and my class keeps up its numbers.”
In the summer he had an invitation to go to Boston to be present at the inauguration of Dr Abbott Lawrence Lowell as President of Harvard University, and at the same time to deliver another series of lectures at the Lowell Institute in Boston. He refused the invitation, however, though with regret, for he shrank from the long voyage across the Atlantic. Another pleasant incident of the year was the publication of Profs. Penck and Brückner’s Die Alpen im Eiszeitalter, which was dedicated to “James Geikie, dem Verfasser von The Great Ice Age, dem Landsmann von John Playfair.”