34 BIOGKAPHIES OF SCIENTIFIC MEN 



was to show herself on pain of instant dismissal. He 

 had no friends real friends only scientific acquaint- 

 ances, and these had to be very careful how they spoke 

 to him, or he would become perfectly silent and leave 

 their presence. It is said of this remarkable man one 

 of the most eccentric characters of his time that he 

 uttered fewer words in the course of his long life than 

 even a Trappist monk. 



In Cavendish House he discovered the composition 

 of water, and made other momentous scientific discoveries. 

 Despite his immense wealth (he was the richest man in 

 London in his day), he lived in the simplest fashion, 

 reserving only one or two rooms for domestic purposes. 



Cavendish was tall and thin, with wizened features. 

 He wore old-fashioned clothes even for the times in 

 which he lived and a knocker-tailed periwig. He would 

 never sit for his portrait. Our illustration is a copy of 

 a drawing made surreptitiously by a contemporaneous 

 artist. 



He was afraid of strangers, and, when introduced to 

 anyone, he fell into a state of the most painful nervous- 

 ness. It was his custom each evening to take a consti- 

 tutional walk in a secluded part of Clapham Common, 

 where there was little chance of his meeting anyone else. 

 Strolling there one evening, thinking over some 

 momentous problem, probably lost to the world, he was 

 addressed by a couple of lovers, fell immediately into 



