I was one of his disciples. As an
older traveler, I took Mr. Lott and him in charge. We sat at the same
table during the voyage.
One day the conversation fell upon the impression made upon us by
great men at first meeting. Did they, or did they not, prove to be as
we had imagined them? Each gave his experience. Mine was that nothing
could be more different than the being imagined and that being beheld
in the flesh.
"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.
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