John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

CONVERSATIONS. 65
My opportunities of conversation with him for these five
months consisted in going down to the India House twice a
week at four o clock, and walking with him a good part of his
way to Kensington Square, where his mother and family lived.
I also spent occasional evenings at the house, where I met
other friends of his G. H. Lewes being a frequent visitor. I
may be said to have travelled over a good part
of his mind
that summer. Although he did not then give me his full
confidence in many things, that I came to know afterwards, I
had a very full acquaintance with his views on Philosophy and
Politics, as well as a complete appreciation of his whole manner
of thinking.
His Logic was finished and ready for press ; he had intended
that it should be out in April of that year (1842). He had
submitted it the previous winter to Mr. John Murray ; who
kept it for some time, and then declined it, so that it could not
be brought out that season. He then submitted it to J. W.
spacious, I should suppose nearly thirty feet long and about eighteen wide ;
it was lighted by three large windows. From the fire at one end to a book
press at the other, the whole length was free from furniture, and was Mill s
promenade with papers in hand. While reading he was generally always on
foot. At the angle between the fire and the nearest window, in a recess, was
his standing desk, and near it his office table, which was covered with papers,
and provided with drawers, but was not used according to his intention ; he
wrote at the tall desk either standing or sitting on a high stool. The chair
for visitors was next the blank wall, beside a large table, on which the India
Despatches used to lie in huge piles.
For a long time, he walked to and from his room, by the route I have des
cribed ;
but, latterly, he changed it for a much more difficult one, whose windings
my memory does not serve me to describe. What 1 remember is that, (suppose
we were leaving), on passing out of the messengers ante-room, instead of descend
ing the two flights of stairs to the long passage, he turned into another door in
the landing, descended a few steps, and went by a long dreary corridor, with
numerous locked presses for papers, and at the far end descended by a series of
stairs that landed us close to the entrance hall. The chief thing that took my
attention in this route was a notice board pointing out the hall or Theatre for
holding the meetings of the Court of Proprietors. It set forth that none but
proprietors of ^500 or upwards of Stock were admitted to the meetings.
Mill s windows looked into a small brick court, consisting of officials rooms;
a clock was audible but not visible.
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