318 Spencer's Life at Brighton [ I 899 



remote future,' I replied, ' it will be too late, everything that is interest- 

 ing and beautiful and happy in the world will have been destroyed. 

 The world will be inhabited then only by the ugly and dull, and miser- 

 able white races.' This made him talk of the South Sea Islanders, 

 the Burmese, and other unspoiled people. He said he had intended 

 writing to William Watson to suggest a poem on the gradual degradation 

 of a South Sea Island community by the missionary and the trader. 

 Watson had not much backbone in his poetry, but he thought he could 

 do this. Trade competition was only another form of war waged by 

 the strong against the weak, less abominable, perhaps, than fire and 

 sword. For this reason the Czar's peace proposals should be sup- 

 ported, though they would not result in any real cessation of civilized 

 aggression. We talked also about race hatred and the influence women 

 had in fostering it, and I told him about India. He showed me some 

 beautiful photographs he had had sent him from Burmah, of the 

 happy poor people there, and contrasted them with the faces of our 

 own poor. Then complaining of being tired, for he had been talking 

 very energetically, he sent me down to have my luncheon with the two 

 ladies who look after him, a housekeeper and a young lady who plays 

 the piano to him. They are both new in the house, and he seems to 

 have no relations or belongings except these two, and they are strangers. 

 After luncheon I went upstairs again, but Spencer soon tired of talk, 

 and, ringing the bell, he sent for the young pianist, whom he directed 

 to play Masaniello and a piece by Purcell, which she did for twenty 

 minutes. She did this very nervously, as he was continually interrupt- 

 ing her, begging her to play either a little faster or a little slower. 

 This done, we fell to talk again about the domestication of animals. 

 While talking he occasionally gets excited, and jumps up from his 

 sofa and walks hurriedly about the room, until suddenly recollecting 

 himself and his health, he stops. He explained to me that he had been 

 an invalid since he was a young man, and he will be seventy-nine next 

 Tuesday, and has a right to be careful. 



" On the whole I am rather disappointed with Spencer. He is so 

 very dry, and so much wrapped up in himself, his ailments, his work 

 and his ideas, to the exclusion, it seems to me, of individual sympathies. 

 His mind is clear and logical, he expresses himself well, but without 

 eloquence or such power as compels attention ; not once was I able to 

 feel myself in the presence of a great man, only of a very well-informed 

 one, a pedagogue and able reasoner. There was nothing in him of 

 the softening character which old age so often gives, and which is 

 so touching. Still I am glad to have spent this day with him, for his 

 is one of the great names of our time, and his work has been great. 

 His rooms in Perceval Terrace are cheerful, facing the sea, and he 

 seldom moves out, the ladies tell me, except for a drive in the after- 



