Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-12-11

intellectual leaders of his time. His eightieth birthday, in 1900, was greet ed with a chorus of praise in which all the civilized world joined.
 But it is praise more than pudding which MT. Spencer received from the civilized world He once wrote that for the first twenty years his publish ing instead of enriching him, cost him money. Even at the rosiest part of his later period the philosophers bank book looked petty enough compared with that of any popular novelist who happened to be the fad of the hour.
 Mir. Spencer never desired riches, but he felt sadly hampered by his inability to make money sufficient for the pur- pose of continuing his studies at ease. and there was bitter ring to his pref ace to "The Principles of Psychology" in which he found that up to that time he had been materially impoverished by his published works.
 Should the day ever come" he con cludes, when the love for the person alities of history is less and the desire for its instructive facts greater those who occupy themselves in picking out the gold. from the dross will perhaps be able to publish their results without inficting on themselves losses too griev- ous to be borne-nay, may possibly re- ceive some thanks for their pains" It was but natural perhaps that Her bert Spencer should be one of the most simple and unostenta tious of men. He repeatedly declined academic honors from universities and colleges and ti+- ular honors which Queen Victoria was l willing to bestow upon him with, it must be confessed, somewhat niggard 1 hand. She who made Disraeli an earl 1 never offered to make Herbert Spencer anything higher than u baronet. But | in truth the earldom would have been even more distasteful to him than the baronetcy.
 1 A friend, writing of him as he was f in his first a. earance in London in
 1s48, says that with his ruddy com l plexiou and vigorous frame he gave | the impression of being q young coun- 1 try gentleman of the sporting farmer
 class. When discussion arose, how l ever, he gave hint of his quality. His
 manner was earnest, and he argued as
 man who had carefully thought out
 bis convictions"
 At this time Herbert Spencer, having l given up civil engineering because the { crash in railroad enterprises had forced < him out of work, was q subeditor on
 the London Economist and contrib I utor to the Leader, weekly paper es-
 tablished by Thornton Hunt and
 George Henry Lewes.
 Thornton Hunt was a son of Leigh
 Hunt, but is chiefly remembered as the : man who ran away with Lewes' first
 wife and thus established justifica-
 ton for Lewes' subsequent relations
 with the brilliant woman now famous 1 as George Eliot.
 F It was Herbert Spencer, however,
 who first presented George lLewes to
 George Eliot The latter was then
 (1S50) a subeditor on the Westminster
 Review, living in the family of the edi-
 tor, Dr. John Chapman. Herbert Spen-
 cer was her great friend, and he cer-
 tainly did as much as Lewes himself
 to awaken and stimulate her intelli-
 gence. 1t is said that he was in love with her. It is only certain that he was never i'll love with any one else and
 that he never married. Tn his early days Spencer had shown
 inventive talent He constructed vel ocimeter, to indicate the speed of loco
 motives, and long before Francis Gal. ton produced composite photographs Spencer had suggested the idea and pointed out its value. During the last : illness of his mother, to whom he was devotedly attached, he invented for her bed which moved in any direction al . touch. Likewise he was something of painter and rather more of 4g : CT, possessing in the latter -lty 8 strong bass voice of good :. ore. He
 continued to sing as an amateur in part 2 music until i'll health forbade the exer tion.
 1t is recorded that on good mornings
 he could produce as many as a thou . sand words. They were poured ou
 naturally, with no apparent effort, bu
 rather slowly. Evidently they had beer
 thought over and arranged in his mint during the previous afternoon anC 2 night, for he rarely used notes Blu ' this first draft was not allowed to gc e ee to the printer At the end of fort . night or so of dictation he would revis, = the product, substituting short word
 for big, pruning away unnecessary sen tences and generally simplifying tn ,. text.
 [ What with these labors of revision and occasional lapses into sickness tn 1T daily average of words when he was il :. his prime was reduced to about 325. .4 One of MT. Spencer's early pleasant S ries was that he read very little, add . ing, with smile, that if he read a Z . much as other people he would knor z as little as they. But he had as aston
 ishing faculty for absorbing knowledg < from others. Also he knew how to eS : act from his assistants the utmost ali in gathering data So As to spare hin \ self for the organizing work he alon \ could do.