CHAPTER IV
'FIERCE WARRES AND FAITHFUL LOVES'
'If Ferrier's life should be written hereafter,' said one, who knew and valued him, just after his death,[1] 'let his biographer take for its motto these five words from the Faery Queen which the biographer of the Napiers has so happily chosen.' Ferrier's life was not, what it perhaps seems, looking back on its comparatively uneventful course, consistently calm and placid,—a life such as is commonly supposed to befit those who soar into lofty speculative heights, and find the 'difficult air' in which they dwell suited to their contemplative temperaments. Ferrier was intrepid and daring in his reasoning; a sort of free lance, Dr. Skelton says he was considered in orthodox philosophical circles; a High Tory in politics, yet one who did not hesitate to probe to the bottom the questions which came before him, even though the task meant changing the whole attitude of mind from which he started. And once sure of his point, Ferrier never hesitated openly to declare it. What he hated most of all was 'laborious dulness and consecrated feebleness'; commonplace orthodoxy was repugnant to him in the extreme, and possibly few things gave him more sincere pleasure than violently to combat it. The fighting instinct is proper to most men who have 'stuff' in them,
- ↑ The late Sir John Skelton, K.C.B.
