304 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



would be to proclaim him more than man, a character 

 to which he would have been the last to lay claim. But 

 this may be asserted with the utmost security that such 

 faults as he had are hard to discover, and whether they 

 concerned his scientific work, his public life or his private 

 conduct, they were not such as to attract the open 

 censure of his contemporaries. Some twenty years ago 

 an anonymous attack on him was unfortunately admitted 

 into the pages of the Chemical News. Its authorship 

 and origin were easily recognisable, but Ramsay paid 

 no attention to it. His friends were satisfied that there 

 was no justification for the allegations and expressions 

 thus brought forward and which could only be regarded 

 as discreditable to the writer. The immense circle 

 of his intimate friends and correspondents is sufficient 

 evidence of the virtue that was in him. Here is a 

 portion of a letter from a scientific man who had known 

 him from the old days in Glasgow University : 



" He was then as always a delightful companion, full of gaiety 

 and kindness. It was wonderful to see how absolutely unspoiled 

 as a friend he remained amid the shower of honours that came 

 upon him. He was never with people too important to give 

 him time to welcome in his radiant way an old acquaintance. 

 Memories flow in upon me, for I saw him in many vicissitudes 

 and many were the happy hours I spent with him." 



That his actions on one or two occasions exposed him 

 to criticism is no doubt true, but such imprudences are 

 attributable wholly to the exercise of that abundant 

 good-nature which was a characteristic. He sometimes 

 allowed himself to be approached too readily by the 



