Dear Aunt | Letter | James Clerk Maxwell

To Miss CAY.

129 Union Street, 18th February 1858.

DEAR AUNT - This comes to tell you that I am going to have a wife.

I am not going to write out a catalogue of qualities, as I am not fit ; but I can tell you that we are quite necessary to one another, and understand each other better than most couples I have seen.

Don't be afraid ; she is not mathematical ; but there are other things besides that, and she certainly won't stop the mathematics. The only one that can speak as an eyewitness is Johnnie, and he only saw her when we were both trying to act the indifferent. We have been trying it since, but it would not do, and it was not good for either.

So now you know who it is, even Katherine Mary Dewar (hitherto). I have heard Uncle Robert speak (second-hand) of her father, the Principal. Her mother is a first-rate lady, very quiet and discreet, but has stuff in her to go through anything in the way of endurance. ... So there is the state of the case. I settled the matter with her, and the rest of them are all conformable.

I hope some day to make you better acquainted. I can hardly admit that Johnnie saw her at all, not as he will when she appears in a true light. . . . For the present you must just take what I say on trust. You know that I am not given to big words. So have faith and you shall know. ...   

I don't write separately to Uncle Robert, seeing he is with you, and I am very busy, and just now I should just write the same thing over again, and I have not a copying press. So good-bye.

Your affectionate nephew

Sourced from

The life of James Clerk Maxwell : with a selection from his correspondence and occasional writings and a sketch of his contributions to science by Campbell, Lewis (1830-1908) via archive.org

An overview of Maxwell’s life and work can be found at the article that appeared in Physics World in 2006 in commemoration of his 175th birthday.

“Born 175 years ago, James Clerk Maxwell carried out the first profound unification of nature’s forces. Francis Everitt examines the immense contributions of the greatest mathematical physicist since Newton.”

James Clark Maxwell and his wife by Jemima Blackburn. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons