Part 41

"Sir Humphry Davy discovered, and possibly evolved, Michael Faraday; but I didn't evolve Herbert Spencer, any more than Balboa evolved the Pacific Ocean," said Youmans at a dinner given to Herbert Spencer when he visited New York in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-one. The name of Youmans is not in the Hall of Fame as one of the world's great men, but as naturalist, teacher, writer, lecturer and practical man of affairs, he reflects credit on his Maker. The light went out of his eyes, but it never went out of his soul.

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In making payment to a publishing-house for sixty volumes of an American historical work, Speaker Cannon recently made this endorsement on the back of the check:

"This check is in full payment, both legal and moral, for sixty volumes of books. The books are not worth a damn--and are dear at that. We are never too old to learn, but the way your gentlemanly agent came it over your Uncle Joseph, is worth the full amount."

When Speaker Cannon says the books are not worth a damn, he does not necessarily state a fact about the books: he merely states a fact about himself--that is, he gives his opinion. The value of the books is still undetermined.

The Speaker's discontent with the books seems to have arisen from the one fact that he had to pay for them.

This condition is a classic one, and the world long ago has conceded to the man who pays, the privilege of protest. When Herbert Spencer issued that world-famous prospectus, announcing his intention to publish ten volumes setting forth his Synthetic Philosophy, it was one of the most daring things ever done in the realm of thought. Spencer was forty, and he was penniless and obscure. He had issued two books at his own expense, and it had taken twelve years to dispose of seven hundred fifty copies of one, and most of the edition of the other was still on hand. Edward L. Youmans had such faith in Spencer that he sent out the prospectus, and followed it up with letters and personal solicitations, until seven thousand dollars was subscribed, and Herbert Spencer, relieved from the uncertainties of finance, was free to think and write.

Among other subscribers secured by Youmans, was the Reverend Doctor Jowett of Balliol. Spencer's books were issued in periodical parts. After paying for three years, Jowett sent a check to the publishers for the full amount of the subscription, saying, in an accompanying note: "To save myself the bother of periodical payments for Mr. Spencer's books, I herewith hand you check covering the full amount of my subscription. I feel that I have already had full returns, for, while the books are absolutely valueless, save as showing the industry of an uneducated and indiscreet person, yet the experience that has come to me in this transaction is not without its benefits."

This is the Oxford way of expressing the Illinois formula, "Your books are not worth a damn--and are dear at that."

But the curious part of this transaction is that, after the death of Doctor Jowett, his library was sold at auction, and his set of the Synthetic Philosophy brought an advance of eight times its original cost.

Truly my Lord Hamlet doth say:

Rashly, And prais'd be rashness for it--let us know, Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, When our deep plots do fail.

No one man's opinion concerning any book, or any man, is final. Speaker Cannon is admired by one set of men and detested by others--all of equal intelligence, although on this point the Speaker might possibly file an exception.

Books are condemned offhand, or regarded as Bibles--it all depends upon your point of view. Speaker Cannon may be right in his estimate of the newly annexed sixty volumes of history that now grace his library-shelves in Danville, proudly shown to constituents, or he may be wrong; but anyway, Cannon's judgment about books is probably worth no more than was the Reverend Doctor Jowett's. Gladstone spoke of Jowett as that "saintly character"; and Disraeli called him "the bear of Balliol--erratic, obtuse and perverse." But Jowett, Gladstone and Disraeli all united in this: they had supreme contempt for the work of Herbert Spencer; while the Honorable Joseph Cannon is neutral, but inclined to be generous, having recently in a speech quoted from the "Faerie Queene," which he declared was the best thing Herbert Spencer had written, even if it was not fully up to date.

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All during his life, Spencer was subject to attacks of indigestion and insomnia. That these bad spells were "a disease of the imagination" made them no less real. His isolation and lack of social ties gave him time to feel his pulse and lie in wait for sleepless nights.

With the old ladies of his boarding-house, he was on friendly terms, and his commonplace talk with them never gave them a guess concerning the worldwide character of his work. Very seldom did he refer to what he was doing and thinking--and then only among his most intimate friends. Huxley was his nearest confidant; and a recent writer, who knew him closely in a business way for many years, says that only with Huxley did he throw off his reserve and enter the social lists with abandon.

No one could meet Spencer, even in the most casual way, without being impressed with the fact that he was in the presence of a most superior person. The man was tall and gaunt, self-contained--a little aloof--he asked for nothing, and realized his own worth. He commanded respect because he respected himself--there was neither abnegation, apology nor abasement in his manner. Once I saw him walking in the Strand, and I noticed that the pedestrians instinctively made way, although probably not one out of a thousand had any idea who he was. No one ever affronted him, nor spoke disrespectfully to his face; if unkind things were said of the man and his work, it was in print and at a distance.

His standard of life was high--his sense of justice firm; with pretense and hypocrisy he had little patience, while for the criminal he had a profound pity.

Music was to him a relaxation and a rest. He knew the science of composition, and was familiar in detail with the best work of the great composers.

In order to preserve the quiet of his thoughts in the boarding-house, he devised a pair of ear-muffs which fitted on his head with a spring.

If the conversation took a turn in which he had no interest, he would excuse himself to his nearest neighbor and put on his ear-muffs. The plan worked so well that he carried them with him wherever he went, and occasionally at lectures or concerts, when he would grow more interested in his thoughts than in the performance, he would adjust his patent.

So well pleased was he with his experiment that he had a dozen pairs of the ear-muffs made one Christmas and gave them to friends, but it is hardly probable they had the hardihood to carry them to a Four-o'Clock. Seldom, indeed, is there a man who prizes his thoughts more than a polite appearance.

In an address before the London Medical Society, in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-one, Spencer said, "The man who does not believe in devils during his life, will probably never be visited by devils on his deathbed." Herbert Spencer died December Eighth, Nineteen Hundred Three, in his eighty-fourth year. Up to within two days of his death, his mind was clear, active and alert, and he worked at his books with pleasure and animation--revising, correcting and amending. He never lost the calm serenity of life. He sank gradually into sleep and passed painlessly away. And thus was gracefully rounded out the greatest life of its age--The Age of Herbert Spencer.

He left no request as to where he should be buried, but the thinking people who recognized his genius considered Westminster Abbey the fitting place--an honor to England's Valhalla. The Church of England denied him a place there before it was asked, and the hallowed precincts which shelter the remains of Queen Anne's cook and John Broughton the pugilist are not for Herbert Spencer. His dust does not rest in consecrated ground.

Herbert Spencer had no titles nor degrees--he belonged to no sect, party, nor society. Practically, he had no recognition in England until after he was sixty years of age. America first saw his star in the east, and long before the first edition of "Social Statics" had been sold, we waived the matter of copyright and were issuing the book here. On receiving a volume of the pirated edition, the author paraphrased Byron's famous mot, and grimly said, "Now, Barabbas was an American."

However, Spencer was really pleased to think that America should steal his book; we wanted it--the English didn't. It took him twelve years to dispose of the seven hundred fifty volumes, and most of these were given away as inscribed copies. They lasted about as long as Walt Whitman's first edition of "Leaves of Grass," although Whitman had the assistance of the Attorney-General of Massachusetts in advertising his remarkable volume.

Henry Thoreau's first book fared better, for when the house burned where the remnant of four hundred copies lingered long, he wrote to a friend, "Thank God, the edition is exhausted."