“Oh!” said Mr. Spencer, “in my case, for instance, was this so?”

“Yes,” I replied, “you more than any.  I had imagined my teacher, the great calm philosopher brooding, Buddha-like, over all things, unmoved; never did I dream of seeing him excited over the question of Cheshire or Cheddar cheese.”  The day before he had peevishly pushed away the former when presented by the steward, exclaiming “Cheddar, Cheddar, not Cheshire; I said Cheddar.”  There was a roar in which none joined more heartily than the sage himself.  He refers to this incident of the voyage in his Autobiography.[72]

[Footnote 72:  An Autobiography, by Herbert Spencer, vol.  I, p. 424.  New York, 1904.]

Spencer liked stories and was a good laugher.  American stories seemed to please him more than others, and of those I was able to tell him not a few, which were usually followed by explosive laughter.  He was anxious to learn about our Western Territories, which were then attracting attention in Europe, and a story I told him about Texas struck him as amusing.  When a returning disappointed emigrant from that State was asked about the then barren country, he said: 

“Stranger, all that I have to say about Texas is that if I owned Texas and h—­l, I would sell Texas.”

What a change from those early days!  Texas has now over four millions of population and is said to have the soil to produce more cotton than the whole world did in 1882.

The walk up to the house, when I had the philosopher out at Pittsburgh, reminded me of another American story of the visitor who started to come up the garden walk.  When he opened the gate a big dog from the house rushed down upon him.  He retreated and closed the garden gate just in time, the host calling out: 

“He won’t touch you, you know barking dogs never bite.”

“Yes,” exclaimed the visitor, tremblingly, “I know that and you know it, but does the dog know it?”

One day my eldest nephew was seen to open the door quietly and peep in where we were seated.  His mother afterwards asked him why he had done so and the boy of eleven replied: 

“Mamma, I wanted to see the man who wrote in a book that there was no use studying grammar.”

Spencer was greatly pleased when he heard the story and often referred to it.  He had faith in that nephew.

[Illustration:  HERBERT SPENCER AT SEVENTY-EIGHT]

Speaking to him one day about his having signed a remonstrance against a tunnel between Calais and Dover as having surprised me, he explained that for himself he was as anxious to have the tunnel as any one and that he did not believe in any of the objections raised against it, but signed the remonstrance because he knew his countrymen were such fools that the military and naval element in Britain could stampede the masses, frighten them, and stimulate militarism.  An increased army and navy would then be demanded.  He referred to a scare which had once arisen and involved the outlay of many millions in fortifications which had proved useless.