Chapter IV (2)

"Another mark of his unbounded patience was the way in which we were suffered to make raids into the study when we had an absolute need of sticking plaster, string, pins, scissors, stamps, foot rule, or hammer. These and other such necessaries were always to be found in the study, and it was the only place where this was a certainty. We used to feel it wrong to go in during work time; still, when the necessity was great, we did so. I remember his patient look when he said once, 'Don't you think you could not come in again, I have been interrupted very often.' We used to dread going in for sticking plaster, because he disliked to see that we had cut ourselves, both for our sakes and on account of his acute sensitiveness to the sight of blood. I well remember lurking about the passage till he was safe away, and then stealing in for the plaster.

"Life seems to me, as I look back upon it, to have been very regular in those early days, and except relations (and a few intimate friends), I do not think any one came to the house. After lessons, we were always free to go where we would, and that was chiefly in the drawing-room and about the garden, so that we were very much with both my father and mother. We used to think it most delightful when he told us any stories about the _Beagle_, or about early Shrewsbury days--little bits about school life and his boyish tastes.

"He cared for all our pursuits and interests, and lived our lives with us in a way that very few fathers do. But I am certain that none of us felt that this intimacy interfered the least with our respect and obedience. Whatever he said was absolute truth and law to us. He always put his whole mind into answering any of our questions. One trifling instance makes me feel how he cared for what we cared for. He had no special taste for cats, but yet he knew and remembered the individualities of my many cats, and would talk about the habits and characters of the more remarkable ones years after they had died.

"Another characteristic of his treatment of his children was his respect for their liberty, and for their personality. Even as quite a little girl, I remember rejoicing in this sense of freedom. Our father and mother would not even wish to know what we were doing or thinking unless we wished to tell. He always made us feel that we were each of us creatures whose opinions and thoughts were valuable to him, so that whatever there was best in us came out in the sunshine of his presence.

"I do not think his exaggerated sense of our good qualities, intellectual or moral, made us conceited, as might perhaps have been expected, but rather more humble and grateful to him. The reason being no doubt that the influence of his character, of his sincerity and greatness of nature, had a much deeper and more lasting effect than any small exaltation which his praises or admiration may have caused to our vanity."[58]

As head of a household he was much loved and respected; he always spoke to servants with politeness, using the expression, "would you be so good," in asking for anything. He was hardly ever angry with his servants; it shows how seldom this occurred, that when, as a small boy, I overheard a servant being scolded, and my father speaking angrily, it impressed me as an appalling circumstance, and I remember running up stairs out of a general sense of awe. He did not trouble himself about the management of the garden, cows, &c. He considered the horses so little his concern, that he used to ask doubtfully whether he might have a horse and cart to send to Keston for Sundew, or to the Westerham nurseries for plants, or the like.

As a host my father had a peculiar charm: the presence of visitors excited him, and made him appear to his best advantage. At Shrewsbury, he used to say, it was his father's wish that the guests should be attended to constantly, and in one of the letters to Fox he speaks of the impossibility of writing a letter while the house was full of company. I think he always felt uneasy at not doing more for the entertainment of his guests, but the result was successful; and, to make up for any loss, there was the gain that the guests felt perfectly free to do as they liked. The most usual visitors were those who stayed from Saturday till Monday; those who remained longer were generally relatives, and were considered to be rather more my mother's affair than his.

Besides these visitors, there were foreigners and other strangers, who came down for luncheon and went away in the afternoon. He used conscientiously to represent to them the enormous distance of Down from London, and the labour it would be to come there, unconsciously taking for granted that they would find the journey as toilsome as he did himself. If, however, they were not deterred, he used to arrange their journeys for them, telling them when to come, and practically when to go. It was pleasant to see the way in which he shook hands with a guest who was being welcomed for the first time; his hand used to shoot out in a way that gave one the feeling that it was hastening to meet the guest's hands. With old friends his hand came down with a hearty swing into the other hand in a way I always had satisfaction in seeing. His good-bye was chiefly characterised by the pleasant way in which he thanked his guests, as he stood at the hall-door, for having come to see him.

These luncheons were successful entertainments, there was no drag or flagging about them, my father was bright and excited throughout the whole visit. Professor De Candolle has described a visit to Down, in his admirable and sympathetic sketch of my father.[59] He speaks of his manner as resembling that of a "savant" of Oxford or Cambridge. This does not strike me as quite a good comparison; in his ease and naturalness there was more of the manner of some soldiers; a manner arising from total absence of pretence or affectation. It was this absence of pose, and the natural and simple way in which he began talking to his guests, so as to get them on their own lines, which made him so charming a host to a stranger. His happy choice of matter for talk seemed to flow out of his sympathetic nature, and humble, vivid interest in other people's work.

To some, I think, he caused actual pain by his modesty; I have seen the late Francis Balfour quite discomposed by having knowledge ascribed to himself on a point about which my father claimed to be utterly ignorant.

It is difficult to seize on the characteristics of my father's conversation.

He had more dread than have most people of repeating his stories, and continually said, "You must have heard me tell," or "I daresay I've told you." One peculiarity he had, which gave a curious effect to his conversation. The first few words of a sentence would often remind him of some exception to, or some reason against, what he was going to say; and this again brought up some other point, so that the sentence would become a system of parenthesis within parenthesis, and it was often impossible to understand the drift of what he was saying until he came to the end of his sentence. He used to say of himself that he was not quick enough to hold an argument with any one, and I think this was true. Unless it was a subject on which he was just then at work, he could not get the train of argument into working order quickly enough. This is shown even in his letters; thus, in the case of two letters to Professor Semper about the effect of isolation, he did not recall the series of facts he wanted until some days after the first letter had been sent off.

When puzzled in talking, he had a peculiar stammer on the first word of a sentence. I only recall this occurring with words beginning with w; possibly he had a special difficulty with this letter, for I have heard him say that as a boy he could not pronounce w, and that sixpence was offered him if he could say "white wine," which he pronounced "rite rine." Possibly he may have inherited this tendency from Erasmus Darwin who stammered.[60]

He sometimes combined his metaphors in a curious way, using such a phrase as "holding on like life,"--a mixture of "holding on for his life," and "holding on like grim death." It came from his eager way of putting emphasis into what he was saying. This sometimes gave an air of exaggeration where it was not intended; but it gave, too, a noble air of strong and generous conviction; as, for instance, when he gave his evidence before the Royal Commission on vivisection, and came out with his words about cruelty, "It deserves detestation and abhorrence." When he felt strongly about any similar question, he could hardly trust himself to speak, as he then easily became angry, a thing which he disliked excessively. He was conscious that his anger had a tendency to multiply itself in the utterance, and for this reason dreaded (for example) having to reprove a servant.

It was a proof of the modesty of his manner of talking, that when, for instance, a number of visitors came over from Sir John Lubbock's for a Sunday afternoon call, he never seemed to be preaching or lecturing, although he had so much of the talk to himself. He was particularly charming when "chaffing" any one, and in high spirits over it. His manner at such times was light-hearted and boyish, and his refinement of nature came out most strongly. So, when he was talking to a lady who pleased and amused him, the combination of raillery and deference in his manner was delightful to see. There was a personal dignity about him, which the most familiar intercourse did not diminish. One felt that he was the last person with whom anyone would wish to take a liberty, nor do I remember an instance of such a thing occurring to him.

When my father had several guests he managed them well, getting a talk with each, or bringing two or three together round his chair. In these conversations there was always a good deal of fun, and, speaking generally, there was either a humorous turn in his talk, or a sunny geniality which served instead. Perhaps my recollection of a pervading element of humour is the more vivid, because the best talks were with Mr. Huxley, in whom there is the aptness which is akin to humour, even when humour itself is not there. My father enjoyed Mr. Huxley's humour exceedingly, and would often say, "What splendid fun Huxley is!" I think he probably had more scientific argument (of the nature of a fight) with Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker.

He used to say that it grieved him to find that for the friends of his later life he had not the warm affection of his youth. Certainly in his early letters from Cambridge he gives proofs of strong friendship for Herbert and Fox; but no one except himself would have said that his affection for his friends was not, throughout life, of the warmest possible kind. In serving a friend he would not spare himself, and precious time and strength were willingly given. He undoubtedly had, to an unusual degree, the power of attaching his friends to him. He had many warm friendships, but to Sir Joseph Hooker he was bound by ties of affection stronger than we often see among men. He wrote in his _Recollections_, "I have known hardly any man more lovable than Hooker."

His relationship to the village people was a pleasant one; he treated them, one and all, with courtesy, when he came in contact with them, and took an interest in all relating to their welfare. Some time after he came to live at Down he helped to found a Friendly Club, and served as treasurer for thirty years. He took much trouble about the club, keeping its accounts with minute and scrupulous exactness, and taking pleasure in its prosperous condition. Every Whit-Monday the club marched round with band and banner and paraded on the lawn in front of the house. There he met them, and explained to them their financial position in a little speech seasoned with a few well-worn jokes. He was often unwell enough to make even this little ceremony an exertion, but I think he never failed to meet them.

He was also treasurer of the Coal Club, which gave him a certain amount of work, and he acted for some years as a County Magistrate.

With regard to my father's interest in the affairs of the village, Mr. Brodie Innes has been so good as to give me his recollections:--

"On my becoming Vicar of Down in 1846, we became friends, and so continued till his death. His conduct towards me and my family was one of unvarying kindness, and we repaid it by warm affection.

"In all parish matters he was an active assistant; in matters connected with the schools, charities, and other business, his liberal contribution was ever ready, and in the differences which at times occurred in that, as in other parishes, I was always sure of his support. He held that where there was really no important objection, his assistance should be given to the clergyman, who ought to know the circumstances best, and was chiefly responsible."

His intercourse with strangers was marked with scrupulous and rather formal politeness, but in fact he had few opportunities of meeting strangers, and the quiet life he led at Down made him feel confused in a large gathering; for instance, at the Royal Society's _soirees_ he felt oppressed by the numbers. The feeling that he ought to know people, and the difficulty he had in remembering faces in his latter years, also added to his discomfort on such occasions. He did not realise that he would be recognised from his photographs, and I remember his being uneasy at being obviously recognised by a stranger at the Crystal Palace Aquarium.

I must say something of his manner of working: a striking characteristic was his respect for time; he never forgot how precious it was. This was shown, for instance, in the way in which he tried to curtail his holidays; also, and more clearly, with respect to shorter periods. He would often say, that saving the minutes was the way to get work done; he showed this love of saving the minutes in the difference he felt between a quarter of an hour and ten minutes' work; he never wasted a few spare minutes from thinking that it was not worth while to set to work. I was often struck by his way of working up to the very limit of his strength, so that he suddenly stopped in dictating, with the words, "I believe I mustn't do any more." The same eager desire not to lose time was seen in his quick movements when at work. I particularly remember noticing this when he was making an experiment on the roots of beans, which required some care in manipulation; fastening the little bits of card upon the roots was done carefully and necessarily slowly, but the intermediate movements were all quick; taking a fresh bean, seeing that the root was healthy, impaling it on a pin, fixing it on a cork, and seeing that it was vertical, &c.; all these processes were performed with a kind of restrained eagerness. He gave one the impression of working with pleasure, and not with any drag. I have an image, too, of him as he recorded the result of some experiment, looking eagerly at each root, &c., and then writing with equal eagerness. I remember the quick movement of his head up and down as he looked from the object to the notes.

He saved a great deal of time through not having to do things twice. Although he would patiently go on repeating experiments where there was any good to be gained, he could not endure having to repeat an experiment which ought, if complete care had been taken, to have told its story at first--and this gave him a continual anxiety that the experiment should not be wasted; he felt the experiment to be sacred, however slight a one it was. He wished to learn as much as possible from an experiment, so that he did not confine himself to observing the single point to which the experiment was directed, and his power of seeing a number of other things was wonderful. I do not think he cared for preliminary or rough observations intended to serve as guides and to be repeated. Any experiment done was to be of some use, and in this connection I remember how strongly he urged the necessity of keeping the notes of experiments which failed, and to this rule he always adhered.

In the literary part of his work he had the same horror of losing time, and the same zeal in what he was doing at the moment, and this made him careful not to be obliged unnecessarily to read anything a second time.

His natural tendency was to use simple methods and few instruments. The use of the compound microscope has much increased since his youth, and this at the expense of the simple one. It strikes us nowadays as extraordinary that he should have had no compound microscope when he went his _Beagle_ voyage; but in this he followed the advice of Robert Brown, who was an authority in such matters. He always had a great liking for the simple microscope, and maintained that nowadays it was too much neglected, and that one ought always to see as much as possible with the simple before taking to the compound microscope. In one of his letters he speaks on this point, and remarks that he suspects the work of a man who never uses the simple microscope.

His dissecting table was a thick board, let into a window of the study; it was lower than an ordinary table, so that he could not have worked at it standing; but this, from wishing to save his strength, he would not have done in any case. He sat at his dissecting-table on a curious low stool which had belonged to his father, with a seat revolving on a vertical spindle, and mounted on large castors, so that he could turn easily from side to side. His ordinary tools, &c., were lying about on the table, but besides these a number of odds and ends were kept in a round table full of radiating drawers, and turning on a vertical axis, which stood close by his left side, as he sat at his microscope-table. The drawers were labelled, "best tools," "rough tools," "specimens," "preparations for specimens," &c. The most marked peculiarity of the contents of these drawers was the care with which little scraps and almost useless things were preserved; he held the well-known belief, that if you threw a thing away you were sure to want it directly--and so things accumulated.

If any one had looked at his tools, &c., lying on the table, he would have been struck by an air of simpleness, make-shift, and oddity.

At his right hand were shelves, with a number of other odds and ends, glasses, saucers, tin biscuit boxes for germinating seeds, zinc labels, saucers full of sand, &c., &c. Considering how tidy and methodical he was in essential things, it is curious that he bore with so many make-shifts: for instance, instead of having a box made of a desired shape, and stained black inside, he would hunt up something like what he wanted and get it darkened inside with shoe-blacking; he did not care to have glass covers made for tumblers in which he germinated seeds, but used broken bits of irregular shape, with perhaps a narrow angle sticking uselessly out on one side. But so much of his experimenting was of a simple kind, that he had no need for any elaboration, and I think his habit in this respect was in great measure due to his desire to husband his strength, and not waste it on inessential things.

His way of marking objects may here be mentioned. If he had a number of things to distinguish, such as leaves, flowers, &c., he tied threads of different colours round them. In particular he used this method when he had only two classes of objects to distinguish; thus in the case of crossed and self-fertilised flowers, one set would be marked with black and one with white thread, tied round the stalk of the flower. I remember well the look of two sets of capsules, gathered and waiting to be weighed, counted, &c., with pieces of black and of white thread to distinguish the trays in which they lay. When he had to compare two sets of seedlings, sowed in the same pot, he separated them by a partition of zinc-plate; and the zinc-label, which gave the necessary details about the experiment, was always placed on a certain side, so that it became instinctive with him to know without reading the label which were the "crossed" and which the "self-fertilised."

His love of each particular experiment, and his eager zeal not to lose the fruit of it, came out markedly in these crossing experiments--in the elaborate care he took not to make any confusion in putting capsules into wrong trays, &c. &c. I can recall his appearance as he counted seeds under the simple microscope with an alertness not usually characterising such mechanical work as counting. I think he personified each seed as a small demon trying to elude him by getting into the wrong heap, or jumping away altogether; and this gave to the work the excitement of a game. He had great faith in instruments, and I do not think it naturally occurred to him to doubt the accuracy of a scale, a measuring glass, &c. He was astonished when we found that one of his micrometers differed from the other. He did not require any great accuracy in most of his measurements, and had not good scales; he had an old three-foot rule, which was the common property of the household, and was constantly being borrowed, because it was the only one which was certain to be in its place--unless, indeed, the last borrower had forgotten to put it back. For measuring the height of plants, he had a seven-foot deal rod, graduated by the village carpenter. Latterly he took to using paper scales graduated to millimeters. I do not mean by this account of his instruments that any of his experiments suffered from want of accuracy in measurement, I give them as examples of his simple methods and faith in others--faith at least in instrument-makers, whose whole trade was a mystery to him.

A few of his mental characteristics, bearing especially on his mode of working, occur to me. There was one quality of mind which seemed to be of special and extreme advantage in leading him to make discoveries. It was the power of never letting exceptions pass unnoticed. Everybody notices a fact as an exception when it is striking or frequent, but he had a special instinct for arresting an exception. A point apparently slight and unconnected with his present work is passed over by many a man almost unconsciously with some half-considered explanation, which is in fact no explanation. It was just these things that he seized on to make a start from. In a certain sense there is nothing special in this procedure, many discoveries being made by means of it. I only mention it because, as I watched him at work, the value of this power to an experimenter was so strongly impressed upon me.

Another quality which was shown in his experimental work, was his power of sticking to a subject; he used almost to apologise for his patience, saying that he could not bear to be beaten, as if this were rather a sign of weakness on his part. He often quoted the saying, "It's dogged as does it;" and I think doggedness expresses his frame of mind almost better than perseverance. Perseverance seems hardly to express his almost fierce desire to force the truth to reveal itself. He often said that it was important that a man should know the right point at which to give up an inquiry. And I think it was his tendency to pass this point that inclined him to apologise for his perseverance, and gave the air of doggedness to his work.

He often said that no one could be a good observer unless he was an active theoriser. This brings me back to what I said about his instinct for arresting exceptions: it was as though he were charged with theorising power ready to flow into any channel on the slightest disturbance, so that no fact, however small, could avoid releasing a stream of theory, and thus the fact became magnified into importance. In this way it naturally happened that many untenable theories occurred to him; but fortunately his richness of imagination was equalled by his power of judging and condemning the thoughts that occurred to him. He was just to his theories, and did not condemn them unheard; and so it happened that he was willing to test what would seem to most people not at all worth testing. These rather wild trials he called "fool's experiments," and enjoyed extremely. As an example I may mention that finding the seed-leaves of a kind of sensitive plant, to be highly sensitive to vibrations of the table, he fancied that they might perceive the vibrations of sound, and therefore made me play my bassoon close to a plant.[61]

The love of experiment was very strong in him, and I can remember the way he would say, "I shan't be easy till I have tried it," as if an outside force were driving him. He enjoyed experimenting much more than work which only entailed reasoning, and when he was engaged on one of his books which required argument and the marshalling of facts, he felt experimental work to be a rest or holiday. Thus, while working upon the _Variations of Animals and Plants_ in 1860-61, he made out the fertilisation of Orchids, and thought himself idle for giving so much time to them. It is interesting to think that so important a piece of research should have been undertaken and largely worked out as a pastime in place of more serious work. The letters to Hooker of this period contain expressions such as, "God forgive me for being so idle; I am quite sillily interested in the work." The intense pleasure he took in understanding the adaptations for fertilisation is strongly shown in these letters. He speaks in one of his letters of his intention of working at Sundew as a rest from the _Descent of Man_. He has described in his _Recollections_ the strong satisfaction he felt in solving the problem of heterostylism.[62] And I have heard him mention that the Geology of South America gave him almost more pleasure than anything else. It was perhaps this delight in work requiring keen observation that made him value praise given to his observing powers almost more than appreciation of his other qualities.

For books he had no respect, but merely considered them as tools to be worked with. Thus he did not bind them, and even when a paper book fell to pieces from use, as happened to Mueller's _Befruchtung_, he preserved it from complete dissolution by putting a metal clip over its back. In the same way he would cut a heavy book in half, to make it more convenient to hold. He used to boast that he had made Lyell publish the second edition of one of his books in two volumes, instead of in one, by telling him how he had been obliged to cut it in half. Pamphlets were often treated even more severely than books, for he would tear out, for the sake of saving room, all the pages except the one that interested him. The consequence of all this was, that his library was not ornamental, but was striking from being so evidently a working collection of books.

He was methodical in his manner of reading books and pamphlets bearing on his own work. He had one shelf on which were piled up the books he had not yet read, and another to which they were transferred after having been read, and before being catalogued. He would often groan over his unread books, because there were so many which he knew he should never read. Many a book was at once transferred to the other heap, marked with a cypher at the end, to show that it contained no passages for reference, or inscribed, perhaps, "not read," or "only skimmed." The books accumulated in the "read" heap until the shelves overflowed, and then, with much lamenting, a day was given up to the cataloguing. He disliked this work, and as the necessity of undertaking the work became imperative, would often say, in a voice of despair, "We really must do these books soon."

In each book, as he read it, he marked passages bearing on his work. In reading a book or pamphlet, &c., he made pencil-lines at the side of the page, often adding short remarks, and at the end made a list of the pages marked. When it was to be catalogued and put away, the marked pages were looked at, and so a rough abstract of the book was made. This abstract would perhaps be written under three or four headings on different sheets, the facts being sorted out and added to the previously collected facts in the different subjects. He had other sets of abstracts arranged, not according to subject, but according to the periodicals from which they were taken. When collecting facts on a large scale, in earlier years, he used to read through, and make abstracts, in this way, of whole series of journals.

In some of his early letters he speaks of filling several note-books with facts for his book on species; but it was certainly early that he adopted his plan of using portfolios, as described in the _Recollections_.[63] My father and M. de Candolle were mutually pleased to discover that they had adopted the same plan of classifying facts. De Candolle describes the method in his _Phytologie_, and in his sketch of my father mentions the satisfaction he felt in seeing it in action at Down.

Besides these portfolios, of which there are some dozens full of notes, there are large bundles of MS. marked "used" and put away. He felt the value of his notes, and had a horror of their destruction by fire. I remember, when some alarm of fire had happened, his begging me to be especially careful, adding very earnestly, that the rest of his life would be miserable if his notes and books were destroyed.

He shows the same feeling in writing about the loss of a manuscript, the purport of his words being, "I have a copy, or the loss would have killed me." In writing a book he would spend much time and labour in making a skeleton or plan of the whole, and in enlarging and sub-classing each heading, as described in his _Recollections_. I think this careful arrangement of the plan was not at all essential to the building up of his argument, but for its presentment, and for the arrangement of his facts. In his _Life of Erasmus Darwin_, as it was first printed in slips, the growth of the book from a skeleton was plainly visible. The arrangement was altered afterwards, because it was too formal and categorical, and seemed to give the character of his grandfather rather by means of a list of qualities than as a complete picture.

It was only within the last few years that he adopted a plan of writing which he was convinced suited him best, and which is described in the _Recollections_; namely, writing a rough copy straight off without the slightest attention to style. It was characteristic of him that he felt unable to write with sufficient want of care if he used his best paper, and thus it was that he wrote on the backs of old proofs or manuscript. The rough copy was then reconsidered, and a fair copy was made. For this purpose he had foolscap paper ruled at wide intervals, the lines being needed to prevent him writing so closely that correction became difficult. The fair copy was then corrected, and was recopied before being sent to the printers. The copying was done by Mr. E. Norman, who began this work many years ago when village schoolmaster at Down. My father became so used to Mr. Norman's handwriting, that he could not correct manuscript, even when clearly written out by one of his children, until it had been recopied by Mr. Norman. The MS., on returning from Mr. Norman, was once more corrected, and then sent off to the printers. Then came the work of revising and correcting the proofs, which my father found especially wearisome.

When the book was passing through the "slip" stage he was glad to have corrections and suggestions from others. Thus my mother looked over the proofs of the _Origin_. In some of the later works my sister, Mrs. Litchfield, did much of the correction. After my sister's marriage perhaps most of the work fell to my share.

My sister, Mrs. Litchfield, writes:--

"This work was very interesting in itself, and it was inexpressibly exhilarating to work for him. He was so ready to be convinced that any suggested alteration was an improvement, and so full of gratitude for the trouble taken. I do not think that he ever forgot to tell me what improvement he thought I had made, and he used almost to excuse himself if he did not agree with any correction. I think I felt the singular modesty and graciousness of his nature through thus working for him in a way I never should otherwise have done."

Perhaps the commonest corrections needed were of obscurities due to the omission of a necessary link in the reasoning, evidently omitted through familiarity with the subject. Not that there was any fault in the sequence of the thoughts, but that from familiarity with his argument he did not notice when the words failed to reproduce his thought. He also frequently put too much matter into one sentence, so that it had to be cut up into two.

On the whole, I think the pains which my father took over the literary part of the work was very remarkable. He often laughed or grumbled at himself for the difficulty which he found in writing English, saying, for instance, that if a bad arrangement of a sentence was possible, he should be sure to adopt it. He once got much amusement and satisfaction out of the difficulty which one of the family found in writing a short circular. He had the pleasure of correcting and laughing at obscurities, involved sentences, and other defects, and thus took his revenge for all the criticism he had himself to bear with. He would quote with astonishment Miss Martineau's advice to young authors, to write straight off and send the MS. to the printer without correction. But in some cases he acted in a somewhat similar manner. When a sentence became hopelessly involved, he would ask himself, "now what _do_ you want to say?" and his answer written down, would often disentangle the confusion.

His style has been much praised; on the other hand, at least one good judge has remarked to me that it is not a good style. It is, above all things, direct and clear; and it is characteristic of himself in its simplicity bordering on naivete, and in its absence of pretence. He had the strongest disbelief in the common idea that a classical scholar must write good English; indeed, he thought that the contrary was the case. In writing, he sometimes showed the same tendency to strong expressions that he did in conversation. Thus in the _Origin_, p. 440, there is a description of a larval cirripede, "with six pairs of beautifully constructed natatory legs, a pair of magnificent compound eyes, and extremely complex antennae." We used to laugh at him for this sentence, which we compared to an advertisement. This tendency to give himself up to the enthusiastic turn of his thought, without fear of being ludicrous appears elsewhere in his writings.

His courteous and conciliatory tone towards his reader is remarkable, and it must be partly this quality which revealed his personal sweetness of character to so many who had never seen him. I have always felt it to be a curious fact, that he who has altered the face of Biological Science, and is in this respect the chief of the moderns, should have written and worked in so essentially a non-modern spirit and manner. In reading his books one is reminded of the older naturalists rather than of any modern school of writers. He was a Naturalist in the old sense of the word, that is, a man who works at many branches of science, not merely a specialist in one. Thus it is, that, though he founded whole new divisions of special subjects--such as the fertilisation of flowers, insectivorous plants, &c.--yet even in treating these very subjects he does not strike the reader as a specialist. The reader feels like a friend who is being talked to by a courteous gentleman, not like a pupil being lectured by a professor. The tone of such a book as the _Origin_ is charming, and almost pathetic; it is the tone of a man who, convinced of the truth of his own views, hardly expects to convince others; it is just the reverse of the style of a fanatic, who tries to force belief on his readers. The reader is never scorned for any amount of doubt which he may be imagined to feel, and his scepticism is treated with patient respect. A sceptical reader, or perhaps even an unreasonable reader, seems to have been generally present to his thoughts. It was in consequence of this feeling, perhaps, that he took much trouble over points which he imagined would strike the reader, or save him trouble, and so tempt him to read.

For the same reason he took much interest in the illustrations of his books, and I think rated rather too highly their value. The illustrations for his earlier books were drawn by professional artists. This was the case in _Animals and Plants_, the _Descent of Man_, and the _Expression of the Emotions_. On the other hand, _Climbing Plants_, _Insectivorous Plants_, the _Movements of Plants_, and _Forms of Flowers_, were, to a large extent, illustrated by some of his children--my brother George having drawn by far the most. It was delightful to draw for him, as he was enthusiastic in his praise of very moderate performances. I remember well his charming manner of receiving the drawings of one of his daughters-in-law, and how he would finish his words of praise by saying, "Tell A----, Michael Angelo is nothing to it." Though he praised so generously, he always looked closely at the drawing, and easily detected mistakes or carelessness.

He had a horror of being lengthy, and seems to have been really much annoyed and distressed when he found how the _Variations of Animals and Plants_ was growing under his hands. I remember his cordially agreeing with 'Tristram Shandy's' words, "Let no man say, 'Come, I'll write a duodecimo.'"

His consideration for other authors was as marked a characteristic as his tone towards his reader. He speaks of all other authors as persons deserving of respect. In cases where, as in the case of ----'s experiments on Drosera, he thought lightly of the author, he speaks of him in such a way that no one would suspect it. In other cases he treats the confused writings of ignorant persons as though the fault lay with himself for not appreciating or understanding them. Besides this general tone of respect, he had a pleasant way of expressing his opinion on the value of a quoted work, or his obligation for a piece of private information.

His respectful feeling was not only admirable, but was I think of practical use in making him ready to consider the ideas and observations of all manner of people. He used almost to apologise for this, and would say that he was at first inclined to rate everything too highly.

It was a great merit in his mind that, in spite of having so strong a respectful feeling towards what he read, he had the keenest of instincts as to whether a man was trustworthy or not. He seemed to form a very definite opinion as to the accuracy of the men whose books he read; and employed this judgment in his choice of facts for use in argument or as illustrations. I gained the impression that he felt this power of judging of a man's trustworthiness to be of much value.

He had a keen feeling of the sense of honour that ought to reign among authors, and had a horror of any kind of laxness in quoting. He had a contempt for the love of honour and glory, and in his letters often blames himself for the pleasure he took in the success of his books, as though he were departing from his ideal--a love of truth and carelessness about fame. Often, when writing to Sir J. Hooker what he calls a boasting letter, he laughs at himself for his conceit and want of modesty. A wonderfully interesting letter is given in Chapter X. bequeathing to my mother, in case of his death, the care of publishing the manuscript of his first essay on evolution. This letter seems to me full of an intense desire that his theory should succeed as a contribution to knowledge, and apart from any desire for personal fame. He certainly had the healthy desire for success which a man of strong feelings ought to have. But at the time of the publication of the _Origin_ it is evident that he was overwhelmingly satisfied with the adherence of such men as Lyell, Hooker, Huxley, and Asa Gray, and did not dream of or desire any such general fame as that to which he attained.

Connected with his contempt for the undue love of fame, was an equally strong dislike of all questions of priority. The letters to Lyell, at the time of the _Origin_, show the anger he felt with himself for not being able to repress a feeling of disappointment at what he thought was Mr. Wallace's forestalling of all his years of work. His sense of literary honour comes out strongly in these letters; and his feeling about priority is again shown in the admiration expressed in his _Recollections_ of Mr. Wallace's self-annihilation.

His feeling about reclamations, including answers to attacks and all kinds of discussions, was strong. It is simply expressed in a letter to Falconer (1863): "If I ever felt angry towards you, for whom I have a sincere friendship, I should begin to suspect that I was a little mad. I was very sorry about your reclamation, as I think it is in every case a mistake and should be left to others. Whether I should so act myself under provocation is a different question." It was a feeling partly dictated by instinctive delicacy, and partly by a strong sense of the waste of time, energy, and temper thus caused. He said that he owed his determination not to get into discussions[64] to the advice of Lyell,--advice which he transmitted to those among his friends who were given to paper warfare.

If the character of my father's working life is to be understood, the conditions of ill-health, under which he worked, must be constantly borne in mind. He bore his illness with such uncomplaining patience, that even his children can hardly, I believe, realise the extent of his habitual suffering. In their case the difficulty is heightened by the fact that, from the days of their earliest recollections, they saw him in constant ill-health,--and saw him, in spite of it, full of pleasure in what pleased them. Thus, in later life, their perception of what he endured had to be disentangled from the impression produced in childhood by constant genial kindness under conditions of unrecognised difficulty. No one indeed, except my mother, knows the full amount of suffering he endured, or the full amount of his wonderful patience. For all the latter years of his life she never left him for a night; and her days were so planned that all his resting hours might be shared with her. She shielded him from every avoidable annoyance, and omitted nothing that might save him trouble, or prevent him becoming overtired, or that might alleviate the many discomforts of his ill-health. I hesitate to speak thus freely of a thing so sacred as the life-long devotion which prompted all this constant and tender care. But it is, I repeat, a principal feature of his life, that for nearly forty years he never knew one day of the health of ordinary men, and that thus his life was one long struggle against the weariness and strain of sickness. And this cannot be told without speaking of the one condition which enabled him to bear the strain and fight out the struggle to the end.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] From the _Century Magazine_, January 1883.

[53] The figure in _Insectivorous Plants_ representing the aggregated cell-contents was drawn by him.

[54] _Life and Letters_, vol. iii. frontispiece.

[55] The basket in which she usually lay curled up near the fire in his study is faithfully represented in Mr. Parson's drawing given at the head of the chapter.

[56] Cf. Leslie Stephen's _Swift_, 1882, p. 200, where Swift's inspection of the manners and customs of servants are compared to my father's observations on worms, "The difference is," says Mr. Stephen, "that Darwin had none but kindly feelings for worms."

[57] The words, "A good and dear child," form the descriptive part of the inscription on her gravestone. See the _Athenaeum_, Nov. 26, 1887.

[58] Some pleasant recollections of my father's life at Down, written by our friend and former neighbour, Mrs. Wallis Nash, have been published in the _Overland Monthly_ (San Francisco), October 1890.

[59] _Darwin considere au point de vue des causes de son succes_ (Geneva, 1882).

[60] My father related a Johnsonian answer of Erasmus Darwin's: "Don't you find it very inconvenient stammering, Dr. Darwin?" "No, Sir, because I have time to think before I speak, and don't ask impertinent questions."

[61] This is not so much an example of superabundant theorising from a small cause as of his wish to test the most improbable ideas.

[62] That is to say, the sexual relations in such plants as the cowslip.

[63] The racks in which the portfolios were placed are shown in the illustration at the head of the chapter, in the recess at the right-hand side of the fire-place.

[64] He departed from his rule in his "Note on the Habits of the Pampas Woodpecker, _Colaptes campestris_," _Proc. Zool. Soc._, 1870, p. 705: also in a letter published in the _Athenaeum_ (1863, p. 554), in which case he afterwards regretted that he had not remained silent. His replies to criticisms, in the latter editions of the _Origin_, can hardly be classed as infractions of his rule.