gged out his gray years were as bare and cheerless
as so many piano boxes. He avoided all the little vices and dissipations
which make human existence bearable: good eating, good drinking,
dancing, tobacco, poker, poetry, the theatre, personal adornment,
philandering, adultery. He was insanely suspicious of everything that
threatened to interfere with his work. Even when that work halted him by
the sheer agony of its monotony, and it became necessary for him to find
recreation, he sought out some recreation that was as unattractive as
possible, in the hope that it would quickly drive him back to work
again. Having to choose between methods of locomotion on his holidays,
he chose going afoot, the most laborious and least satisfying available.
Brought to bay by his human need for a woman, he directed his fancy
toward George Eliot, probably the most unappetizing woman of his race
and time. Drawn irresistibly to music, he avoided the Fifth Symphony and
"Tristan und Isolde," and joined a crowd of old maids singing part songs
around a cottage piano. John Tyndall saw clearly the effect of all this
and protested against it, saying, "He'd be a much nicer fellow if he had
a good swear now and then"--_i. e._, if he let go now and then, if he
yielded to his healthy human instincts now and then, if he went on some
sort of debauch now and then. But what Tyndall overlooked was the fact
that the meagreness of his recreations was the very element that
attracted Spencer to them. Obsessed by the fear--and it turned out to be
well-grounded--that he would not live long enough to complete his work,
he regarded all joy as a temptation, a corruption, a sin of scarlet. He
was a true ascetic. He could sacrifice all things of the present for one
thing of the future, all things real for one thing ideal.

XII

ON LYING

Lying stands on a different plane from all other moral offenses, not
because it is intrinsically more heinous or less heinous, but simply
because it is the only one that may be accurately measured. Forgetting
unwitting error, which has nothing to do with morals, a statement is
either true or not true. This is a simple distinction and relatively
easy to establish. But when one comes to other derelictions the thing
grows more complicated. The line between stealing and not stealing is
beautifully vague; whether or not one has crossed it is not determined
by the objective act, but by such delicate things as motive and purpose.