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456 be seen in Mill's conduct on retiring from the India House in 1858 after thirty-five years of service. His friends in the Examiner's Office, including every member of the force, desired to present him with a suitable token of regard. In half an hour after the matter was proposed, subscriptions were eagerly volunteered to the amount of fifty or sixty pounds, while outside contributions were jealously refused, as those in immediate service under the retiring examiner insisted on sharing with no outsiders the pleasure and honor of making this testimonial. But before the gift, an elaborate silver inkstand, could be got ready, the one for whom it was designed caught the scent and was greatly displeased. Approaching the originator of the plan, W. T. Thornton (as will have been surmised), he almost upbraided him, and was really angry, so far as it was in him to cherish anger. He said he hated all such demonstrations; was sure they were never wholly genuine; there were always some who took part in them only because they disliked to refuse; and, in short, he positively would have none of it. With him it was a question of principle, and where a principle was involved he could not give way, despite the obvious awkwardness in store for Thornton and his associates. The matter had gone too far to be dropped altogether, and finally the assistance of Mill's stepdaughter, Helen Taylor, was invoked; the inkstand was smuggled into the house without Mill's knowledge, and, thanks to Miss Taylor, instead of being promptly returned, it was in the end promoted to a place of honor in the drawing-room. Mill's excessive devotion to his wife, a devotion that manifests itself in some of his writings as idolatrous worship, proves the warmth of his heart, however clearly it may betray a lamentable clouding of the judgment by a passion to which he, of all men, had seemed least likely to fall a victim.

From the many who knew Mill in his lifetime, abundant testimony could be quoted to prove the charm and purity of his nature, as well as the intellectual and moral stimulus of his personality. "Intimacy with Mr. Mill convinced me," says Henry Fawcett, "that, if he had happened to live at either of the universities, his personal influence would have been no less striking than his intellectual influence. Nothing, perhaps, was so remarkable in his character as his tenderness to the feelings of others, and the deference with which he listened to those in every respect inferior to himself. There never was a man who was more entirely free from that intellectual conceit which breeds disdain. Nothing is so discouraging and heart-breaking to young people as the sneer of an intellectual cynic. A sarcasm about an act of youthful mental enthusiasm not only often casts a fatal chill over the character, but is resented as an injury never to be forgiven. The most humble youth would have found in Mr. Mill the warmest and most kindly sympathy." An anecdote from the same source illustrates another equally admirable