DALTON. 59 



In many respects the stamp of Dalton's character was like 

 that of Cavendish. The same mathematical turn was common 

 to both; the same unpolished manners and uneasy address. 

 Both were self-reliant ; each trusting more to his own deduc- 

 tions than to the opinions of others. But Dalton possessed 

 a genial love of humanity which Cavendish had not, and a 

 fund of quiet humour to which the latter was a stranger. 

 Neither married: Cavendish because he hated womankind; 

 Dalton, as he playfully observed, because he could never 

 find time. But Dalton was, nevertheless, fond of the society 

 of ladies. The memory of a lady, too, was painfully blended 

 with thoughts of his early life. He held a letter written in a 

 female hand. It had been addressed to him as a youth, but 

 he often read it when stricken in years. He never told its 

 contents, nor allowed any strange eye to gaze upon them: 

 but as often as he read the letter, he would shed tears. The 

 coryphaeus of atomic philosophy was not moved to tears by 

 a trifle, depend upon it. Even when in London, delivering 

 lectures at the Royal Institution, he could unbend enough to 

 furnish Mrs. Johns with a notion of London fashions. < I 

 should tell Mrs. J . something of the fashions here,' he writes 

 to Mr. Johns ; 6 but it is so much out of my province, that I 

 feel rather awkward. I see the belles of New Bond-street 

 every day, but I am more taken up with their faces than 

 their dresses ! I think blue and red are the favourite colours. 

 Some of the ladies seem to have their dresses as tight round 

 them as a drum, others throw them round them like a blanket. 

 I do not know how it happens, but I fancy pretty women 

 look well anyhow.' When we reflect that a lady's face must 

 have seemed to Dalton sky-blue, and her ruby lips purple or 

 mud colour, he must have been very far from a woman-hater 

 to have thought them pretty ! 



This sketch of Dalton's life would not be complete without 

 stating the circumstances which first led him to be intimate 

 with the Johns family. In early life Dalton had been ac- 



