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'I have been unexpectedly interested - unexpectedly as to degree - in my old friend Babbage's "Passages in the Life &c". I dare say you read it, and half forgot it, months or years ago. I did not like the look of it in the notices I saw: but I let it come in the Mudie box; and I have been almost terribly interested in it... His face and voice come back with a painful vividness while I read... Some tremendous glimpses in this book are like inspiration...'
[Whewell read Babbage, and was concerned that it had been his own Bridgewater which had stimulated Babbage to write one]