Lord Kelvin's early home : being the recollections of his sister the late Mrs. Elizabeth King / together with some family letters and a supplementary chapter by the editor, Elizabeth Thomson King ; with illustrations from Mrs. King's own drawings and those of her daughters.

  • King, Elizabeth, 1818-1896.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lord Kelvin's early home : being the recollections of his sister the late Mrs. Elizabeth King / together with some family letters and a supplementary chapter by the editor, Elizabeth Thomson King ; with illustrations from Mrs. King's own drawings and those of her daughters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    he knew nothing of it. There was no dis- appointment, and the admiration he expressed made us all unboundedly happy. From that evening Robert was dressed to our entire satisfaction.^ One day about this time a difficult problem was given out to the students in the mathe- matical class. William, of course, tried to solve it, though not yet a student ; but he had not succeeded before going to bed. By- and-bye, when he was supposed to be fast asleep, his voice was heard downstairs, shout- ing, “Eureka! Eureka!” and on our father going up to see what it was about, he found the little bare-footed figure standing in its night- gown on the landing, excited and triumphant. The solution had flashed on the child’s mind in bed, and was already, by the help of the stair gas, scribbled on a slate he had placed at his bedside. I do not remember our father going out to dinners, or into society of any kind, during the whole of this winter when our aunt first ^ [When my sister and I visited our Uncle Robert in Melbourne in 1903 we read these recollections to him. The frail old man remembered this incident perfectly and listened with delight.— E. T. K.] H