HENRY JAMES SUMNER MAINE. 359 



Maine was naturally a very quiet man ; he disliked publicity ; he 

 liked to do his work, whatever it was, in a private way. He avoided 

 public life and public speaking. When at one time it was proposed 

 that he should go into Parliament, as representative of Cambridge, he 

 declined ; and when Mr. Gladstone offered him the office of Chief 

 Clerk of the House of Commons, after the resignation of Sir Erskine 

 May, he declined again. He was willing to serve the public, and did 

 so in connection with the government of India, and in all the work of 

 his life, indeed ; but his service was done very quietly and unostenta- 

 tiously. Maine was in temper cautious, not to say timid, and very 

 conservative. He was always ready and willing to discuss a state of 

 affairs, and he was willing to suggest measures of reform and change; 

 but he did not like to commit himself even to the measures he sug- 

 gested, and objected to taking any leadership in connection with them. 

 Maine liked to hold his judgment free : he would state an opinion 

 and state it distinctly; then he would qualify it with an if or & per- 

 haps. This characteristic is plainly exhibited in all his writings. It is 

 very irritating to those who like to engage in personal controversies. 

 They take up Maine's opinions, and argue against them, as his opinions. 

 Then he says that they were rather suggestions than opinions ; and 

 that he never invited, nor proposed to enter into, any controversies 

 regarding them. Maine disliked personal controversies, and avoided 

 them as much as possible. We have seen a letter he wrote some 

 years ago, in which he objects to the method of a certain teacher of 

 history, who was in the habit of encouraging his pupils to enter into 

 controversies. Maine objected to anything like enthusiasm or zeal in 

 the pursuit of scientific truths. He himself worked in a very quiet, 

 cautious, conservative spirit, and wished to have others work in the 

 same spirit. He held to the principle, that it is not men we have to 

 qnarrel with in this world, but false and injurious ideas, which the very 

 best of men may hold with the best of motives. We gather another 

 principle out of Maine's life, — that we are responsible, not for other 

 people's ideas, but for our own. It is our own ideas which we must 

 look after and correct and perfect, not those of other people. Maine 

 was not a man to undertake or to carry out reforms. The successful 

 reformer must be sure of his views, confident of his cause, and he must 

 be eager to defend his cause against every form of opposition, and 

 zealous in getting other men to take it up and help defend it. But 

 Maine longed not so much to establish his views as to correct them. 

 He was always expecting out of one idea to get another and better one. 

 So he kept his mind, not in the state of conclusion, but in a state of 



