House. There some of us were introduced for the first time to good claret. I remember Mrs Clark (rather a masterful old lady) saying, “Drink your wine like a good boy and don’t talk nonsense,” as though these precepts contained the whole duty of undergraduate man. J. W. Clark was the patron and director of the undergraduates’ Amateur Dramatic Society (the A. D. C.), and occasionally took a part himself. I have a clear recollection of hearing him (attired in red tights) exclaim in his peculiar pronunciation, in which the letters l and r were indistinguishable, “I am the srave of the ramp.”
I had left to the last the man whose kindness towards me as an undergraduate I valued most highly, and whose friendship it is still my good fortune to possess—I mean Henry Jackson, now Professor of Greek, but at that time a Trinity lecturer. I have an image of him walking up and down his room in Neville’s Court with a pipe in his mouth (which burned more fiercely than did the pipes of other men), and talking with a humour and enthusiasm which were a perpetual delight. A literary venture, The Tatler in Cambridge, originated among undergraduates under the editorship of the present Canon Mason. To this I contributed a paper On the Melancholy of Bachelors, which was accepted, chiefly, I think, through the kindness of E. Gurney. I shall never forget my delight when, on the day of its publication, Henry Jackson came round to my rooms to tell me that he liked it.
I must now return to my more serious
employments. It was at the suggestion of E. C. Stirling that I became a medical student and began to work for the Natural Sciences Tripos. In order to get more time for the last-named examination I kept my small stock of mathematics simmering as it were, and managed (without giving much time to the subject) to get a mathematical degree as fifth among the Junior Optimes in 1870. I had the pleasure of being coached for this examination by James Stuart—the only man, I imagine, who ever made mathematics entertaining and even amusing to an unmathematical pupil.
I then had a clear year in which I could devote myself to Natural Science. I did not succeed in finding a coach who was of any use to me. But in Comparative Anatomy I did a fair amount of undirected work: in this way I dissected a good many creatures such as slugs and snails and freshwater mussels, dragonflies, etc. I have a dim recollection of catching the mussels in the Cam with Gordon Wigan, the son of the celebrated actor—and indeed that kindly personage joined us in one of our boating expeditions.
On leaving Cambridge I went to St George’s Hospital with the intention of becoming a practising physician. But happily for me the Fates willed otherwise. The late Dr Cavafy of St George’s Hospital urged me to learn something of Histology, and sent me to Dr Klein, whose pupil I had the good fortune to become at the Brown Institute. I have elsewhere [67] said something of my debt of gratitude to
Dr Klein. Under his guidance I produced a paper which served as a thesis for my M.B. degree. I had another interesting experience during my time at St George’s. I used to go to the Zoological Society’s dissecting-room, where the late Dr Garrod (the Prosector) allowed me to investigate some of the daily quota of dead animals. But it was not of any real educational value, I fancy. Still it may have helped the impetus of Klein’s teaching to suggest that medicine [68a] should be given up and that I should become the assistant to my father.
The old nursery at Down had been turned into a laboratory, and when (on the death of my wife) I came to live in the house of my parents, they converted the billiard-room into a sitting-room for me.
During the following years I went to work under Sachs at Würzburg and afterwards under De Bary at Strassburg. Sachs was most kind and helpful, and under his direction I contributed a small paper to his Arbeiten. I made some good friends at Würzburg—Stahl, who is now Professor of Botany at Jena; Kunkel, the Pharmacologist, who died young; the Finlander Elfving, who is now Professor of Botany at Helsingfors; and Goebel, now the well-known Professor of Botany at Munich. He and I walked side by side to receive our degrees at the 1909 meeting in Cambridge. [68b] I had the great
pleasure of seeing Elfving on the same occasion, and we have never ceased to correspond, though at irregular intervals. I had once the satisfaction of receiving Stahl as my guest at Cambridge. He is still Professor of Botany at Jena, and in spite of rather weak health has published a mass of good work.