334 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



His extraordinary severity towards those who occupy 

 the extremes of Christian dogma, towards the Church of 

 Rome and towards the Unitarians, was a result of this 

 idiosyncrasy pushed to its extreme. In 1859, when he was 

 lecturing in Birmingham, before the Midland Institute, he 

 was invited to meet some of the principal personages of 

 the town at dinner, and, in particular, a well-known 

 gentleman, who is now dead. Philip Gosse accepted the 

 invitation with pleasure ; but shortly before the party met, 

 the host received a note saying that it had just been men- 

 tioned to Mr. Gosse that Mr. was a Socinian. Had Mr. 



Gosse been unaware of this, he should have desired to ask 

 no questions, but, the information having been volunteered, 

 he had no alternative but, with extreme regret and even 

 distress, to explain that he could not " sit at meat with 

 one whom I know to deny the Divinity of the blessed 

 Lord." To realize what this sacrifice to conscience in- 

 volved, it must be recollected that my father was a man 

 of elaborate and punctilious courtesy, and extremely 

 timid. I could multiply examples, but it is needless to 

 do so. 



It will perhaps be assumed from this sketch of my 

 father's religious views, that he was gloomy and saturnine 

 in manner. It is true that, at the very end of his life, 

 wrapped up as he grew to be more and more in meta- 

 physical lucubrations, his extreme self-absorption took a 

 stern complexion. But it had not always been so in earlier 

 years. He was subject to long fits of depression, the 

 result in great measure of dyspepsia, but when these 

 passed away he would be cheerful and even gay for 

 weeks at a time. Never lonely, never bored, he was 

 contented with small excitements and monotonous amuse- 

 ments, and asked no more than to be left alone among his 

 orchids, his cats, and his butterflies, happy from morning 



