28 HERBERT SPENCKR

it is one thing to invent and another thing to make
inventions boil the pot. For a year trut « half, he
lamented, time and energy and money had been
simply thrown away. The proceeds of the binding
pin just about served to pay for hi* shire in the coat
of the planing machine patent

Seven years spent in experimenting towards it
livelihood had not brought Spencer much success.
In point of fact he was "stranded/'1 and there wa»
talk of emigration to New Xealand, or of " reverting
to the ancestral profession *' of teaching, but the* year
of suspense ended with hii appointment (i8*ftl) as
sub-editor in The M&mmut office, at t salary of one
hundred guineas a year, " Thus m end was at lt«
put to the seemingly futile part of ay lift which
filled the space between twenty-one and fwenty«*tlgf«
—futile in respect of material progress, but in mher
respects perhaps not futile."

He had enjoyed a varied intt*rcourM» with men
and things during these seven lean years «f roil way-
making, sub-editing, experimenting, inventing j. ho
had had experience of field work and office work, of
doing what he was told and of exercising authority i
he had had time for drawing,, modelling, muau', ami
some natural history j he had come to know »ome-
thing of life's ups and downs* " In nhort, there hail
been gained a more than usually heterogcneoua, thtutgh
superficial, acquaintance with the world, animate and
inanimate. And along with the gaining of it hsttl ganc
a rufming commentary of speculative* thought about
the various matters presented.*' ttutiiwu.

St/Mitirig.-~Spmc€fs duties 11 sub-editor of Tl»
Economist were not onerous j. he had ibuttdtot iviaurv