Uttley said with the utmost simplicity that he was an atheist, and the
religious world called him "Uttley the Atheist," a title which he
accepted as naturally as if it implied no contempt or antagonism
whatever. He was by no means devoid of physical courage also, for I
remember that at one time he rode an ugly brute that had a most
dangerous habit of bolting, and he would not permit me to mount her. He
was excessively temperate in his habits, never drinking anything
stronger than water, except, perhaps, a cup of tea (I am not sure about
the tea), and never eating more than he believed to be necessary to
health. He maintained the doctrine that hunger remains for a time after
the stomach has had enough, and that if you go on eating to satiety you
are intemperate. He disliked, and I believe despised, the habit of
stuffing on festive occasions, which used to be common in the wealthier
middle classes. I confess that Mr. Uttley's fearless honesty and steady
abstemiousness impressed me with the admiration that one cannot but feel
for the great virtues, by whomsoever practised; but Mr. Uttley had a
third virtue, which is so rare in England as to be almost unintelligible
to the majority,--he looked with the most serene indifference on social
struggles, on the arts by which people rise in the world. Perfectly
contented with his own station in life, and a man of remarkably few
wants, he lived on from year to year without ambition, finding his chief
interest in the pursuit of his profession, and his greatest pleasure in
his books. He so little attempted to make a proselyte of me that, when
at a later period I told him of a certain change of views, concerning
which more will be said in the sequel, he was unaffectedly surprised by
it, and said that he had never supposed me to be other than what I
appeared to the world in general, an ordinary member of the Church of
England. My intimate knowledge of Mr. Uttley's remarkable character must
have had, nevertheless, a certain influence in this way, that it enabled
me to estimate the vulgar attacks on infidels at their true worth; and