The only man in English literature who is to be compared to these two Frenchmen is Sir Walter Scott. In his first success, when money flowed in on him almost in torrents, his vanity led him to build the mansion of Abbotsford and his one wish was to be regarded as the Squire or ruler of the countryside, but not long after, when his partner in the publishing business had caused the failure of the firm, he bravely went to work and wrote novel after novel, year after year, to pay off his debts. His vanity and love of show disappeared and the man's true nobility took its proper place; almost on his death-bed he continued to dictate his novels although he was agonized with pain and distress. Similar patience was shown by Thomas Carlyle, who rewrote the whole of his great work, "The French Revolution," after the first copy had been carelessly burnt by a servant girl in the house of a friend who had borrowed the manuscript. He was a dyspeptic and a constant grumbler, but on this occasion he redeemed himself by sitting down quietly to work and hammering away at his dreary task until he had once more finished the masterpiece. Carlyle was so sensitive to noise and other disturbances that he had a sound-proof shed or room built on the roof of his house in London, where he did a great part of his writing, and even there he complained of the rumbling of the wagons in the street, which vibrated through the house. Herbert Spencer, the great English philosopher, was also easily disturbed by noises, but he solved the problem by wearing ear muffs which were specially made under his instruction. Spencer was rather irritable, it is said; certainly on one occasion he made himself a source of amusement when he objected to being beaten at billiards by the son of a friend of his and remarked that it was not fitting that a young man should have spent so much time and money on so foolish a pastime; yet when he won, the expenditure of thought and time on the part of so great a philosopher seemed altogether wise.