Some seven years ago, after bearing as long as was possible the continued losses entailed on me by the publication of the “System of Philosophy,” I notified to the subscribers that I should be obliged to cease at the close of the volume then in progress.  Shortly after the issue of this announcement I received from Mr. Mill a letter, in which, after expressions of regret, and after naming a plan which he wished to prosecute for re-imbursing me, he went on to say, “In the next place ... what I propose is, that you should write the next of your treatises, and that I should guarantee the publisher against loss; i.e., should engage, after such length of time as may be agreed on, to make good any deficiency that may occur, not exceeding a given sum,—­that sum being such as the publisher may think sufficient to secure him.”  Now, though these arrangements were of kinds that I could not bring myself to yield to, they none the less profoundly impressed me with Mr. Mill’s nobility of feeling, and his anxiety to further what he regarded as a beneficial end.  Such proposals would have been remarkable even had there been entire agreement of opinion, but they were the more remarkable as being made by him under the consciousness that there existed between us certain fundamental differences, openly avowed.  I had, both directly and by implication, combated that form of the experiential theory of human knowledge which characterizes Mr. Mill’s philosophy:  in upholding Realism, I had opposed in decided ways those metaphysical systems to which his own Idealism was closely allied; and we had long carried on a controversy respecting the test of truth, in which I had similarly attacked Mr. Mill’s positions in an outspoken manner.  That, under such circumstances, he should have volunteered his aid, and urged it upon me, as he did, on the ground that it would not imply any personal obligation, proved in him a very exceptional generosity.

Quite recently I have seen afresh illustrated this fine trait,—­this ability to bear with unruffled temper, and without any diminution of kindly feeling, the publicly-expressed antagonism of a friend.  The last evening I spent at his house was in the company of another invited guest, who, originally agreeing with him entirely on certain disputed questions, had some fortnight previously displayed his change of view,—­nay, had publicly criticised some of Mr. Mill’s positions in a very undisguised manner.  Evidently, along with his own unswerving allegiance to truth, there was in Mr. Mill an unusual power of appreciating in others a like conscientiousness, and so of suppressing any feeling of irritation produced by difference,—­suppressing it, not in appearance only, but in reality, and that, too, under the most trying circumstances.