ABSTRACT
From the moment that I went up to Cambridge at the beginning of October, 1890, everything went well with me. All the people then in residence who subsequently became my intimate friends called on me during the first week of term. At the time I did not know why they did so, but I discovered afterwards that Whitehead, who had examined for scholarships, had told people to look out for Sanger and me. Sanger was a freshman like myself, also doing mathematics, and also a minor scholar. He and I both had rooms in Whewell’s Court. Webb, our coach, had a practice of circulating MSS. among his classes, and it fell to my lot to deliver a MS. to Sanger after I had done with it. I had not seen him before, but I was struck by the books on his shelves. I said: “I see you have Draper’s Intellectual Development of Europe which I think a very good book”. He said: “You are the first person I have ever met who has heard of it!” From this point the conversation proceeded, and at the end of half an hour we were lifelong friends. We compared notes as to how much mathematics we had done. We agreed upon theology and metaphysics. We disagreed upon politics (he was at the time a Conservative, though in later life he belonged to the Labour Party). 57He spoke to me about Shaw, whose name was until then unknown to me. We used to work on mathematics together. He was incredibly quick, and would be half-way through solving a problem before I had understood the question. We both devoted our fourth year to moral science, but he did economics, and I did philosophy. We got our Fellowships at the same moment. He was one of the kindest men that ever lived, and in the last years of his life my children loved him as much as I have done. I have never known anyone else with such a perfect combination of penetrating intellect and warm affection. He became a Chancery barrister, and was known in legal circles for his highly erudite edition of Jarman On Wills. He was also a very good economist; and he could read an incredible number of languages, including such out-of-the-way items as Magyar and Finnish. I used to go walking tours with him in Italy, and he always made me do all the conversation with inn-keepers, but when I was reading Italian, I found that his knowledge of the language was vastly greater than mine. His death in the year 1930 was a great sorrow to me.
