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Page 40
That you and I have fundamentally different political
principles must, I think, have become obvious to both of us
during the progress of the American War. The fact is made
still more plain by your printed letter, the tone and spirit
of which I greatly admire, without being able to recognize in
it any important fact or argument which had not passed through
my mind before I joined the Jamaica Committee.
Thus there is nothing for it but for us to agree to differ,
each supporting his own side to the best of his ability and
respecting his friend's freedom as he would his own, and doing
his best to remove all petty bitterness from that which is
at bottom one of the most important constitutional battles in
which Englishmen have for many years been engaged.
If you and I are strong enough and wise enough, we shall be
able to do this, and yet preserve that love for one another
which I value as one of the good things of my life.
That public controversy could be conducted without loss of friendship
he showed also in debate with Herbert Spencer. Their private
encounters in argument were often very lively, for Spencer was a most
tenacious disputant, to whom argument was as the breath of life.
It was probably after a meeting of the _x_ Club, in the freedom of
which debate was likely to be of the liveliest, that Spencer wrote
accusing himself of losing his temper, and received the following
reply:--
Your conscience has been treating you with the most extreme
and unjust severity.
I recollect you _looked_ rather savage at one point in our
discussion, but I do assure you that you committed no overt
act of ferocity; and if you had, I think I should have fully
deserved it for joining in the ferocious onslaught we all made
upon you.
What your sins may be in this line to other folk I don't know,
but, so far as I am concerned, I assure you I have often said
that I know no one who takes aggravated opposition better than
yourself, and that I have not a few times been ashamed of the
extent to which I have tried your patience.
So you see that you have what the Buddhists call a stock of
accumulated merit, _envers moi_; and if you should ever feel
inclined to "d---- my eyes," you can do so and have a balance
left.
Seriously, my old friend, you must not think it necessary to
apologize to me about any such matters, but believe me (d--ned
or und--d),--Ever yours faithfully....
If he was comrade and brother among the friends of his own generation,
he was a living inspiration to the friends of the next generation,
especially to the pupils and teaching lieutenants who worked in
close touch with him. His younger disciples always felt that in acute
criticism and vast learning nobody surpassed him; but what they yet
more admired than his learning was his wisdom. It was a delight to
read an essay fresh from his pen, but an ever so much higher delight
to hear him talk for five minutes. "His," says Professor Hubrecht,
"was the most beautiful and the most manly intellect I ever knew
of." The personal affection as well as admiration he inspired may be
gathered from Sir E. Ray Lankester's words: "There has been no man or
woman whom I have met in my journey through life whom I have loved
and regarded as I have him, and I feel that the world has shrunk
and become a poor thing now that his splendid spirit and delightful
presence are gone from it." And Professor Jeffery Parker concludes his
Recollections of his old chief with these words:--
Whether a professor is usually a hero to his demonstrator I
cannot say; I only know that, looking back across an interval
of many years and a distance of half the circumference of the
globe, I have never ceased to be impressed with the manliness
and sincerity of his character, his complete honesty of
purpose, his high moral standard, his scorn of everything mean
or shifty, his firm determination to speak what he held to be
truth at whatever cost of popularity. And for these things
"I loved the man, and do honour to his memory, on this side
idolatry, as much as any."
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