Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/443

Rh of science, which he threw open to all engaged in research, and from which he himself never took a book without leaving a formal receipt. His favorite residence was a beautiful suburban villa at Clapham, which now, as well as a street in the neighborhood, bears his name. The whole house was occupied with workshops and laboratory, only a small part being set aside for personal comfort. He needed nothing more for himself, and he did not wish others to visit him. When occasionally he had guests, they were always feasted on a leg of mutton. On one occasion his housekeeper suggested that a leg of mutton would not be enough. Well, then get two, was the reply.

The more prominent of Cavendish's contemporaries have left graphic estimates of his remarkable and interesting peculiarities of character. The most striking was a singular love of being alone. He held aloof from social intercourse, even with members of his own family, and only once a year saw the one he had made his heir. To the great objects of common regard which excite the fancy, the emotions and the higher affections, he was equally indifferent. The beautiful, the sublime and the spiritual seem to have lain entirely beyond his horizon. Although he is thought to have held Unitarian views, he is also understood never to have attended a place of worship. In the words of one of his contemporaries, 'he was the coldest and most indifferent of mortals.' He never married and was reputed to have a positive dislike for women. Lord Brougham tells us that Cavendish ordered his dinner daily by a note, left on the hall table, where the housekeeper could afterwards get it. Another authority relates that Cavendish 'one day met a maid servant on the stairs with a broom and pail, and was so annoyed that he immediately ordered a back staircase to be built.' His dress was that of the gentleman of the preceding half century. The frilled shirtwaist, the greatcoat of a greenish color, and the cocked hat, made a picture no one was likely to mistake. But gleams of genius often broke through this unpromising exterior. He never spoke except to the point, and always supplied excellent information or drew some important conclusion from his own very extensive and accurate knowledge. So that while Sir Humphry Davy said of him, "His voice was squeaking, his manner nervous, he was afraid of strangers, and seemed, when embarrassed, even to articulate with difficulty," he also said, "He was acute, sagacious, and profound, and, I think, the most accomplished British philosopher of his time."

But two additonaladditional [sic] dates remain to be given in reference to his personal history: The first, March 25, 1803, when he was elected one of the eight foreign associates of the French Institute; the second, February 24, 1810, when he died, in his seventy-ninth year. As he lived so he died by rule, predicting his death as if it had been the eclipse of some great luminary (as indeed it was), and counting the moment when