He lived in a perfect atmosphere of mathematics: his books, all ranged in the neatest order, and covered with uniform brown paper, were mathematical. His talk, to us at any rate, was one round mathematics. Even his chairs and tables strictly limited to the requirements of pupils, and the pattern on his carpet, seemed to breath mathematics. By what mysterious process it was that he accumulated stores of miscellaneous information and knew all about the events of the time (for such I afterwards discovered to be the fact) I have never been able to guess. Probably he imbibed it through the pores of his skin. Still less can I imagine how it came to pass that he published a whole series of excellent mathematical works. He probably wrote them in momentary interstices of time between one pupil's entering his sanctum and another leaving it.

Todhunter's life was mainly that of a studious recluse. His sustained industry and methodical distribution of his time enabled him to acquire a wide acquaintance with general and foreign literature; and besides being a sound Latin and Greek scholar, he was familiar with French, German, Spanish, Italian, and also Russian, Hebrew, and Sanscrit. He was well versed in the history of philosophy, and on three occasions acted as examiner for the moral sciences tripos. His habits and tastes were singularly simple; and to a gentle kindly disposition he united a high sense of honour, a warm sympathy with all that was calculated to advance the cause of genuinely scientific study in the university, and considerable humour.

I should rejoice to see ... Euclid honourably shelved or buried deeper than ever did plummet sound, out of the schoolboy's reach....

Whatever may have produced the dislike to Euclid in the illustrious mathematician..., there is no ground for supposing that he would have been better pleased with the substitutes which are now offered and recommended in its place.

From the majority of the papers in our few mathematical journals, one would almost be led to fancy that British mathematicians have too much pride to use a simple method, while an unnecessarily complex one be had.

I take down some of these volumes, and turning over the pages I find article after article by Profs Cayley, Salmon and Sylvester, not to mention many other highly distinguished names. The idea of amending the elaborate essays of these eminent mathematicians seems to me something like the audacity recorded in poetry with which a superhuman hero climbs to the summit of the Indian Olympus and overturns the thrones of Vishnu, Brahma and Siva.

No mathematical treatises on elementary subjects probably ever attained so wide a circulation; and, being adopted by the Indian government, they were translated into Urdu and other Oriental languages.