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 of all this and protested against it, saying, "He'd be a much nicer fellow if he had a good swear now and then"—i. e., if he let go now and then, if he yielded to his healthy human instincts now and then, if he went on some sort of debauch now and then. But what Tyndall overlooked was the fact that the meagreness of his recreations was the very element that attracted Spencer to them. Obsessed by the fear—and it turned out to be well-grounded—that he would not live long enough to complete his work, he regarded all joy as a temptation, a corruption, a sin of scarlet. He was a true ascetic. He could sacrifice all things of the present for one thing of the future, all things real for one thing ideal.