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132   ENGLISH DIEN OF SCIENCE.   [CHAP.

independence of, character. Fifty of my correspondents show that they possess it in excess, and in only two is it below par. Here are a few examples:

1. " Left, aet. 12 [that is, ran away from], a school where I had received injustice from the master." 2. " Opinions in almost all respects opposed to those in which 1 was educated." 3. " I have always taken my own independent line. My heresy prevented my advancement." 4. " Preference for whatever is not the fashion,

not popular, not rich, not very able to help itself, yet with qualities unworthily overlooked or unjustly oppressed."

The home atmosphere which the scientific men breathed in their youth was generally saturated with the spirit of independence. Examples :

1. " My father was extremely independent, in some respects more so than I am. He never altered the fashion of his dress ; he never took off his hat to anyone in his life, and never addressed anyone as Esq." 2. "My father was a Liberal when Liberalism (then styled Jacobinism) was highly obnoxious, an early denouncer of slavery