

DALTON. 57 



this defect of sight ! A fair face with glowing veins would be 

 to Dalton as a corrupting corpse !' 



Nevertheless, Dalton was not insensible to human, to 

 female, beauty. Though he never married and never courted 

 society, he was not, like Cavendish, a misanthrope. If he 

 did not court society, he did not flee from it ; and if he did 

 not shine in general conversation, he was a good listener. 

 His letters are a fount of kindly sentiment and droll humour. 

 He has been called penurious, but during the greater part of 

 his life he worked hard and remained poor. He gave 50Z. 

 towards building a chapel at a time when he had little to 

 spare ; and he held forth the helping hand of charity on many 

 proper occasions. He was awkward in manner, and his voice 

 was harsh; perhaps, conscious of these defects, he did not 

 court society. But is not courting social intercourse to be 

 imputed as a fault to one who felt the span of life already 

 too short for the maturing of his researches one who made 

 upwards of two hundred thousand meteorological observa- 

 tions, and experiments innumerable one who taught much, 

 wrote much, and worked in the fields one whose mind must 

 have been roaming amidst the atoms, who penetrated into 

 the immensity of created particles and weighed them as in 

 the scales, though he could not see them? 



The desire to become and remain independent was a fine 

 trait in the character of Dalton. His becoming schoolmaster 

 at the early age of twelve was a proof of it, in boyhood. In 

 manhood, he gave still further proof, by refusing an offer 

 which many in his position would have readily accepted. A 

 gentleman, who entertained sincere respect for Dalton' s scien- 

 tific talents, and fearing lest the res angustce would impede his 

 pursuits, offered him apartments, complete independence of ac- 

 tion, a laboratory, and 400Z. per annum. The philosopher re- 

 spectfully declined. He feared to compromise his independence. 



In the year 1804, the fame of Dalton as a philosopher 

 had become so widely spread, that he accepted an invitation 



