In his leisure he employed
his pen on the side of justice, freedom, education, toleration,
emancipation; and his writings, though full of common-sense and
bright humour, are never vulgar; nor did he ever pander to
popularity or prejudice. His good spirits, thanks to his natural
vivacity and stamina of constitution, never forsook him; and in
his old age, when borne down by disease, he wrote to a friend: "I
have gout, asthma, and seven other maladies, but am otherwise very
well." In one of the last letters he wrote to Lady Carlisle, he
said: "If you hear of sixteen or eighteen pounds of flesh wanting
an owner, they belong to me. I look as if a curate had been
taken out of me."
Great men of science have for the most part been patient,
laborious, cheerful-minded men. Such were Galileo, Descartes,
Newton, and Laplace. Euler the mathematician, one of the greatest
of natural philosophers, was a distinguished instance. Towards
the close of his life he became completely blind; but he went on
writing as cheerfully as before, supplying the want of sight by
various ingenious mechanical devices, and by the increased
cultivation of his memory, which became exceedingly tenacious.
His chief pleasure was in the society of his grandchildren, to
whom he taught their little lessons in the intervals of his
severer studies.
In like manner, Professor Robison of Edinburgh, the first editor
of the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' when disabled from work by a
lingering and painful disorder, found his chief pleasure in the
society of his grandchild.
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