Darwin

I

If Darwin was not conspicuous as a lover of God, he was at least notable in every way as one who loved his fellow men. He liked to meet people, liked to talk with them, liked to have them about him. He was interested in humanity, enjoyed the contact of it, and felt in others the warm throb of a heart that beat as kindly and sympathetically as his own. Men, women, and children were drawn to him and recognized a friend.

Of his personal appearance the chief impression that comes to us is naturally in age. He was tall and powerfully built, and in his youth must have been attractive to look at, though there is no definite record of this. In later years his aspect was dignified without being severe. ‘His face is massive,’ writes Norton to Ruskin, with ‘little beauty of feature, but much of expression.’[235] What seems to have chiefly impressed observers was the eyes and the look in them. Professor Osborn says: ‘The impression of Darwin’s bluish-gray eyes, deep-set under overhanging brows, was that they were the eyes of a man who could survey all nature.’[236] And Bryce agrees: ‘The feature which struck one most was the projecting brow with its bushy eyebrows, and deep beneath it the large gray-blue eyes with their clear and steady look. It was an alert look, as of one accustomed to observing keenly, yet it was also calm and reflective. There was a pleasant smile which came and passed readily, but the chief impression made by the face was that of tranquil, patient thoughtfulness, as of one whose mind had long been accustomed to fix itself upon serious problems.’[237]

There is general testimony as to Darwin’s ready hospitality and eager kindliness in greeting all those who came into his household. There was no reserve or assumption of dignity, but a perfectly natural and cordial desire and disposition to make every one feel at home. I do not know any more impressive witness to this charm of manner than Leslie Stephen, who was certainly not a man to be unduly carried away. Stephen speaks of ‘the charm which no one to whom I have ever spoken failed to perceive in his presence and in his writings.’[238] And he elsewhere dwells upon it more elaborately: ‘He was in town for a few days and most kindly called upon me. You may believe that I was proud to welcome him, for of all eminent men that I have ever seen he is beyond comparison the most attractive to me. There is something almost pathetic in his simplicity and friendliness. I heard a story the other day about a young German admirer whom Lubbock took to see him. He could not summon up courage to speak to the great man; but, when they came away, burst into tears. That is not my way; but I sympathize to some extent with the enthusiastic Dutchman.’[239]

The accounts of Darwin’s conversation are as attractive as of his appearance and manner. That he entered into it usually with intense eagerness appears from his own account of his fatigue from it: ‘I find that on my good days, when I can write for a couple of hours, that anything which stirs me up like talking for half or even a quarter of an hour, generally quite prostrates me, sometimes even for a long time afterwards.’[240] But it is very evident that he did not engross the talk and even after his high position was established had not the slightest tendency to hold forth or deliver orations, as is the habit of some distinguished men. Norton even declares that ‘His talk is not often memorable on account of brilliancy or impressive sayings—but it is always the expression of the qualities of mind and heart which combine in such rare excellence in his genius.’[241]

Instead of himself talking to excess, he liked to draw his visitors out, to get at their interests and their point of view, not in any intrusive fashion, but with instinctive sympathy, and with his natural modest sense that their affairs were more important than his own. He clearly had in a high degree the exquisite art of listening intelligently, and of asking questions which would bring out all that was best and most profitable in the person with whom he happened to be talking. This well appears in Charles Kingsley’s account of his first interview with him: ‘I was deeply moved at meeting for the first time Darwin. I trembled before him like a boy, and longed to tell him all I felt for him, but dare not, lest he should think me a flatterer extravagant. But the modesty and simplicity of his genius was charming. Instead of teaching, he only wanted to learn, instead of talking, to listen, till I found him asking me to write papers which he could as yet hardly write himself—ignorant in his grand simplicity of my ignorance and of his own wisdom.’[242]

The conversation was not by any means always serious. It does not appear that Darwin had any great enjoyment of humorous literature. Nor was he inclined to witty flings or brilliant repartee. His mind worked too slowly for a rapid-fire exchange of this sort. It was only occasionally that he hit out at a promising interlocutor, as when he remarked to Lady Derby, who had been describing her remarkable peculiarities of vision, ‘Ah, Lady Derby, how I should like to dissect you.’[243] Above all, he had no taste for the satirical or bitter, and it was only under extreme provocation that he could write to Huxley: ‘God bless you!—get well, be idle, and always reverence a bishop.’[244]

But he was full of genial, kindly fun, and was ready to see the laughable side of little incidents and even great. He laughed heartily and frequently and with an infectious gayety and buoyancy. He liked merry and humorous talk, with plenty of anecdote and sparkle, and he was ready to chaff and joke his friends and to take the same sort of thing himself. He was even willing to find a comic side in the sacred subject of natural selection and to turn his own deepest interests into matter for smiles when the occasion was suitable. Thus he writes to Lubbock, of his son: ‘See what it is to be well trained. Horace said to me yesterday, “If every one would kill adders they would come to sting less.” I answered, “Of course they would, for there would be fewer.” He replied indignantly: “I did not mean that; but the timid adders which run away would be saved, and in time they would never sting at all.” Natural selection of cowards!’[245]

In Darwin’s later years he might of course have been crowded with social engagements all the time. Everybody wanted to see him, to know him, to talk with him, to entertain him. The preoccupation of his work and the limitations of his health made any such social activity impossible, and it is not likely that he greatly missed it. Yet, wherever he went, he was welcome, his society was appreciated, not only for his reputation, but for itself, and when he could get about, it evidently gave him pleasure: ‘I dined with Bell at the Linnean Club, and liked my dinner ... dining out is such a novelty to me that I enjoyed it.’[246] At an earlier period, when there was more strength to spare for such diversions, he entered into them with hearty enthusiasm, and even, it appears, with a thorough rollicking zest. When he settled himself in Cambridge, after his return from the Beagle voyage, he complained that the only trouble was that life was too pleasant and some agreeable party every evening made morning labor rather difficult.[247] And of the miscellaneous social gatherings of still earlier days he writes: ‘We used often to dine together in the evening, though these dinners often included men of a higher stamp, and we sometimes drank too much, with jolly singing and playing at cards afterwards. I know that I ought to feel ashamed of days and evenings thus spent, but as some of my friends were very pleasant, and we were all in the highest spirits, I cannot help looking back to these times with much pleasure.’[248]

In the matter of sports and diversions Darwin’s tastes seem to have run rather to those which are not in their nature social, though what attracted him was the character of the sports themselves, and not the element of solitude. In his youth he was passionately fond of outdoor sport, of fishing and hunting. He had a keen love for angling, he says, and would sit for hours watching his float in some solitary pool or stream, though when some one told him that he could kill the angle worms with salt and water instead of spitting them on the hook, it was a great relief to his feelings.[249] He was especially eager with a gun, and long before he took the slightest interest in the scientific study of birds, he liked to kill them. He tells us that the killing of his first snipe excited him so much that he trembled till it was difficult to reload his gun. Even after his scientific interest had begun to develop, he dropped every vestige of it in the shooting season: ‘at that time I should have thought myself mad to give up the first days of partridge-shooting for geology or any other science.’[250]

He became an excellent shot and, as his son says, had all his life a remarkable power of coördinating his movements, so that he was not only accurate with a gun, but in throwing, and after he was a grown man, simply to test his skill, he threw a marble at a cross-beak and killed it: ‘He was so unhappy at having uselessly killed the cross-beak that he did not mention it for years, and then explained that he should never have thrown at it if he had not felt sure that his old skill had gone from him.’[251] Perhaps the most striking witness to the depth of Darwin’s passion for these field sports is the unusually harsh remark of his father who loved his son and was deeply beloved by him: ‘You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.’[252] Which is not the first case of imperfect prevision on the part of a father, nor the last.

Of games that are more essentially social, there is no indication that Darwin was an ardent practitioner. When he was at school he played ‘batfives,’[253] but there is no mention of football or cricket. In describing his personal tastes in later years, he speaks of cards with something of contempt: ‘Have not played for many years, but I am sure I should not remember.’[254] His tone about them in 1842, however, is quite different: ‘This walk was rather too much for me, and I was dull till whist, which I enjoyed beyond measure.’[255] In 1859, the year of the ‘Origin,’ he set up a billiard-table, ‘and I find it does me a deal of good, and drives the horrid species out of my head.’[256] But his special pleasure in the game line was backgammon, which he played with Mrs. Darwin, year after year, keeping a score of victories and defeats, getting or pretending to be, greatly excited over his failures and even indignant at his antagonist’s good-fortune. In 1875 he wrote to Asa Gray: ‘Pray give our very kind remembrances to Mrs. Gray. I know that she likes to hear men boasting, it refreshes them so much. Now the tally with my wife in backgammon stands thus: she, poor creature, has won only 2490 games, whilst I have won, hurrah, hurrah, 2795 games.’[257]

But through it all Darwin’s humanity is evident everywhere. He loved his fellow-creatures, loved to mix with them, and to have them care for him, and his interest went far deeper than a mere, though absorbing, curiosity as to their animal origin.

II

The drawback to Darwin’s social life, as to his power of work, was in the limitations of health, and if we would fully appreciate not only the heroism of his achievement, but the charm of his character, we must understand how great and far-reaching those limitations were. The natural strength and vigor of his sturdily constructed frame endured through youth and in the main through the Beagle voyage, in spite of the persistent sea-sickness; but from shortly after his return to England on, his life was nothing but a more or less relieved and varying chronic invalidism.

The effect of this upon his scientific labors I have indicated earlier. It hampered them at every step. He could work but a few hours in the morning and after that the constant effort and lesson was in the endeavor to forget; ‘It is so weariful, killing the whole afternoon, after 12 o’clock, doing nothing whatever.’[258] A piece of investigation, which required perhaps the most nice and constant watchfulness, had to be abandoned in the middle, because recurring and increasing symptoms absolutely demanded that complete rest should be taken. It was necessary not only to stop working, but to stop thinking, and for a brain eager and absorbed as Darwin’s was, this was enormously difficult.

With social life the limitation was equally vexatious. It is true that there are certain compensations about such a state of things. A successful and prominent man who has his health is expected to meet all sorts of social demands and strains which consume his time to little purpose, and if he is not extremely careful of himself and does not sometimes push insistence even to the point of rudeness, he finds his work interfered with almost as much as by ill-health, or it may be even more. There are many times when delicate health is a convenient and useful excuse, and Darwin recognized this very fully: ‘Even ill-health, though it has annihilated several years of my life, has saved me from the distractions of society and amusement.’[259]

But the compensation was not always appreciated. When indigestion preserved you from boredom, you might be grateful; but when it cut you off from seeing your best friends, when it deprived you of that exchange of scientific ideas which is the keenest and most fruitful stimulus for achievement, then you could not but repine a little. The excitement, the enthusiasm of eager talk, made you forget yourself and your symptoms for the time. But there was the inevitable afterwards, and gradually you learned that restraint was necessary. ‘Even talking of an evening for less than two hours has twice recently brought on such violent vomiting and trembling that I dread coming up to London.’[260] Simple comments like this, often repeated, show how intense and how crippling the weakness was.

What is notable about this matter of Darwin’s ill-health is that it bred no bitterness. There is an occasional sigh of regret, a touch of humorous complaint over the deprivations and the inability to accomplish all that was desired: ‘Adios, my dear Hooker; do be wise and good, and be careful of your stomach, within which, as I know full well, lie intellect, conscience, temper, and the affections.’[261] But there is not one trace of that sour pessimism, that crabbed outcry against the dispositions of Providence and of the universe which chronic invalidism is so apt to produce.

When we come to look for the cause of Darwin’s troubles, it is evident that at this distance of time we can hardly get a clear enough account of the symptoms and the conditions to conjecture with great definiteness, though the enlarged medical knowledge of to-day might interpret matters that were then obscure. There was sometimes a disposition to attribute the whole recurring misery of later years to the Beagle sea-sickness. But Darwin himself rejected this explanation and his son points out that the settled illness came on only gradually some years after his return.[262] Darwin believed that his bad health was due ‘to the hereditary fault which came out as gout in some of the past generations.’[263] The specialists of that day were quite at sea. ‘Dr. Brinton has been here,’ says Darwin; ‘he does not believe my brain or heart primarily affected, but I have been so steadily going down hill, I cannot help doubting whether I can ever crawl a little uphill again.’[264] It is amusing to see how later speculators have exercised their wits upon the case. Dr. George M. Gould, in his brilliant ‘Biographic Clinics,’ grouped Darwin with Huxley, Tennyson, Browning, and a dozen others, as a victim of eye-strain, and believed all his trouble could have been disposed of by properly refracting glasses. With the development of glandular theories, Darwin’s thyroid, pituitary, and adrenal secretions have been set down as excessive or deficient. With his build, he would certainly have been a promising subject for the experiments of the orthopædist, while the dietitian would have prescribed unlimited spinach and carrots, the osteopath would have discovered disastrous subluxations in the spine, and the psycho-analyst would see the foundation of the whole trouble in disordered complexes. And all of them would have some symptomatic justification, and all of them would have been eager to work over the poor man, as they have done over many another such, with mountains of expectation and promise and outlay, and too often a pitiful mouse of result.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the specialist was not quite so rampant in Darwin’s day, and while later scientific developments might, or might not, have cured him, he escaped a good deal of unprofitable discomfort. The water cure was fashionable at that time and he was duly put through it, with some annoyance, and perhaps with a little improvement: ‘One most singular effect of the treatment is that it induces in most people, and eminently in my case, the most complete stagnation of mind. I have ceased to think even of barnacles.’[265]

But pending the discovery of some miraculous cure, the only help seemed to be in persistent care, self-control, and discipline. It was necessary to be careful as to eating, and here Darwin appears to have been generally abstemious, though he had a taste for sweets, which he sometimes indulged with humorous excuses and a clear prevision of the bad results that were likely to follow, and did. As to alcohol, even in his earlier years when boisterous excess in drinking was common enough, Darwin was not much inclined to anything of the sort. He does indeed tell of gay supper-parties, where too much wine was drunk. His son records his confession, in answer to a query as to early habits, that ‘he was ashamed to say he had once drunk too much at Cambridge.’[266] And Grant Duff mentions a curious remark, which seems well vouched for but is hard to believe: ‘Hooker, who is staying here, amused us by saying that Darwin had told him that he had got drunk three times in early life, and thought intoxication the greatest of all pleasures.’[267] Whether he thought so or not, he did not often indulge in it. And as he grew older, he abandoned wine almost entirely, so that when she was engaged his future wife could write: ‘I don’t think it of as much consequence as she does that Charles drinks no wine, but I think it a pleasant thing.’[268] He smoked cigarettes more or less, and found them restful, but he certainly did not overdo the habit. His favorite indulgence was snuff-taking, which was given up and renewed much after the fashion of Lamb’s tobacco. Of his efforts in this direction he writes, with humor: ‘I am personally in a state of utmost confusion also, for my cruel wife has persuaded me to leave off snuff for a month; and I am most lethargic, stupid, and melancholy in consequence.’[269]

The chief element in Darwin’s care of his health, however, was persistent rest. All his days were systematically planned, the few hours that could be given to it set apart for work, and the rest devoted to some form of relaxation or needed repose. There were long nights, if not for sleep, at least for physical tranquillity, and there were afternoons and evenings spent largely on the sofa, in chat or in listening to music or to stories of purely diverting quality. Any interruption of this carefully arranged schedule was avoided, if possible, and almost always had to be paid for. Thus, by persistent, systematic, rigid self-control, and by sacrificing days and months and years to a comparatively tedious indolence, Darwin gained the few hours that were essential for the work that shook the world.

In one respect he was extremely fortunate. If he was hampered by ill-health, he at least had ample means to make that ill-health as tolerable as possible. He did not know the misery of having to support yourself and your family and being physically unable to do it. Without wholly endorsing the sarcastic remark of Butler, ‘The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next his health, and the third his reputation,’ one can see some truth in it, especially when the possession of money serves to make the loss of health more endurable. Darwin’s father was very successful financially. He provided for all his children in the most liberal fashion during his life, and left them in comfortable circumstances after his death, and Darwin often refers to this with gratitude and appreciation. The son seems to have had abundant means to keep up a considerable establishment, to educate and provide for his own large family, to indulge in general benefaction, and to do if not all he wished, at least a great deal in the way of scientific investigation and experiment.

In later years a considerable income from the published books was naturally added to the supply that was inherited. Darwin was proud of his earning in this way, and he had reason to be, although he could hardly boast of such returns as were received by his contemporary Trollope. One is chiefly impressed, however, with his extreme anxiety that others should be treated fairly, and that no one should suffer by his gains. Thus he writes to his publisher, in a tone which publishers will I think recognize as not usual: ‘You are really too generous about the, to me, scandalously heavy corrections. Are you acting fairly towards yourself? Would it not be better at least to share the £72 8s? I shall be fully satisfied, for I had no business to send, though quite unintentionally and unexpectedly, such badly composed MS to the printers.’[270]

One of the consequences of Darwin’s delicate health was, that he was more or less anxious about money. When you can count on your physical strength for fighting circumstance, you can float cheerfully out into the world and let your daily support come where you can get it. But if you are weak, crippled, and hampered, if you are absolutely dependent upon the comforts which others merely enjoy but can do without, you look with dread upon the possibility of losing what alone assures you of the indispensable. Darwin was not altogether free from this feeling, and his son tells us that he was haunted by the fear that his children would not have health to earn their own living yet might be obliged to do so.[271] In consequence he was always thoughtful and careful in money matters. He looked after his investments with shrewd intelligence, and respected the faculty of making money and keeping it. He was not above saving a penny where it could be done, and especially he was exact and systematic about his expenditure. His biographer says that ‘he kept accounts with great care, classifying them, and balancing at the end of the year like a merchant. I remember the quick way in which he would reach out for his account book to enter each check paid, as though he were in a hurry to get it entered before he had forgotten it.’[272] An interesting contradiction to this financial exactitude and to Darwin’s ordinary habits of accuracy is his inveterate carelessness in not dating or not fully dating his letters.

The financial exactitude and anxiety do not for a moment imply that he was not liberal and generous in the highest degree, as perhaps the wisest, and even the largest generosity, comes with such prevision and forethought. He spent freely on his current living, and he was particularly considerate, not only in giving to his family, but in the manner of giving, which sometimes seems to count for even more. His son speaks of his thoughtful kindness in attending to financial arrangements, and emphasizes his generosity in paying college debts, ‘making it almost seem a virtue in me to have told him of them.’[273] Nor was the generosity confined to his family. It was broad and luminous in its working, and there are constant references to the causes to which Darwin sent his check, with no ostentation, but with the earnest desire to do good. His limitations of strength made it difficult for him to go about largely in his home neighborhood, but the poor people knew him and loved him, and he was ready and glad to assist them when possible. As Bryce says, ‘he was a kind and helpful neighbor to the humble folk who lived round him at Down.’[274] Especially he was glad to give not only his time and his limited strength, but his money, to aiding those who were doing scientific work of any sort. And in brief, in this connection of general kindliness it is worth while to note the remark of the devout old woman who was told that Darwin would go to hell for his wicked doctrines and answered: ‘God Almighty can’t afford to do without so good a man.’[194]

III

It was a natural consequence of invalidism that Darwin’s social habits and inclinations were conspicuous in the domestic circle. He seems to have been kindly and considerate with every one in the household, and the servants liked him, though they were sometimes puzzled by his pursuits, as when a gardener remarked that he thought Mr. Darwin would be better if he had more to do. It was very rare that he got out of temper with those who worked for him, and he dreaded having to scold any one because he knew that he was liable to say more than he meant.[195] His son tells us, ‘when I overheard a servant being scolded, and my father speaking angrily, it impressed me as an appalling circumstance.’[196] In general his manner was courteous and conciliatory and he appeared more as if he were asking a favor than giving an order. When he was overcome by illness, in the very last days, he refused to allow a neighbor’s butler either to call a cab or to accompany him home, as he was unwilling to give so much trouble.

Darwin’s extreme love for all domestic animals I have already indicated negatively in dealing with his dislike of cruelty and ill-treatment, but the love was always positive and showed itself in constant interest and attention and care. One instance of much regretted sin in this regard is amusingly recorded in the Autobiographical Sketch: ‘Once as a very little boy whilst at the day school, or before that time, I acted cruelly, for I beat a puppy, I believe, simply from enjoying the sense of power; but the beating could not have been severe, for the puppy did not howl, of which I feel sure, as the spot was near the house. This act lay heavily on my conscience, as is shown by my remembering the exact spot where the crime was committed.’[107] But the crime was not repeated in later life. Even to the pigeons, which he raised for purposes of scientific investigation Darwin became greatly attached: ‘I love them to that extent,’ he says, ‘that I cannot bear to kill and skeletonize them.’[108] His dogs were matter of interest and delight and intense affection to him always. And dogs of all kinds seemed to be drawn to him. As a young man his sister’s pets would follow him instead of her, and with the dog of a friend at Cambridge it was the same. Dogs were not only the subject of his minute observations for the study of expression, they were his companions in his daily walks and his intimate friends.

For all the members of his family Darwin’s affection was deep, solid, and lasting. The tenderness with which he regarded his father’s memory is, it seems to me, somewhat unusual: ‘I do not think any one could love a father much more than I did mine, and I do not believe three or four days ever pass without my still thinking of him.’[109] The tenderness shows especially in the long sketch of his father’s character, which is far less qualified with critical comments than one would expect from Darwin’s naturally analytical disposition, and always where his affection was concerned the analysis seemed to drop somewhat into abeyance. His references to his brothers and sisters also show in simple earnestness how much they meant in his life.

Naturally the most prominent figure in the domestic circle is Mrs. Darwin, and the depth and endurance of Darwin’s affection for her are everywhere evident. There is no record or intimation of any earlier attachment or love-affair. Very likely there were such, but neither Darwin nor his biographers give any hint of them. We have seen that he liked pretty women in novels, and occasionally in his books he makes some reference to feminine attraction. His daughter tells us that ‘He was often in love with the heroines of the many novels that were read to him, and used always to maintain both in books and real life that a touch of affectation was necessary to complete the charm of a pretty woman.’[110] The daughter finds it difficult to understand what this means, as her father had such a horror of affectation in general. It seems to me at any rate to mean that he did not take love-making very seriously, and there is certainly no sign that it ever much disturbed his life.

Even when he was engaged, his love for Emma Wedgwood does not seem to have been of the kind that stings and burns. His letters to her that have been printed are gentle, considerate, and sympathetic: they exhibit none of the torments that self-doubting and self-spurring and ardently exultant passion are inclined to. In the most attractive of them he writes: ‘Excuse this much egotism—I give it you because I think you will humanize me, and soon teach me there is greater happiness than building theories and accumulating facts in silence and solitude. My own dearest Emma, I earnestly pray, you may never regret the great, and I will add very good deed, you are to perform on the Tuesday.’[111] And he adds playfully: ‘I want practice in ill-treating the female sex—I did not observe Lyell had any compunction; I hope to harden my conscience in time: few husbands seem to find it difficult to effect this.’[112] Everything is right and as it should be. But the tone is not that of some love-letters I have seen, and this is the more notable, considering the extraordinary frankness and directness of Darwin’s correspondence generally.

But if Darwin’s conjugal attachment did not begin with violence and high-wrought passion, it continued and deepened and strengthened with broad sunny richness to the end of his life. And this was just as true, although Mrs. Darwin had no particular affection for his scientific pursuits. I have said elsewhere that she assisted him, and in his work as in everything else she was eager to do her wifely duty and help where she could. But she had no love for the work in itself, and her daughter remarks that though in the beginning she had resolved to enter into her husband’s tastes, she found it impossible. ‘He used to tell how during some lecture at the British Association he said to her, “I am afraid this is very wearisome to you,” to which she quietly answered, “Not more than all the rest,”’[113] And in writing to Lubbock he makes gentle fun of her indifference: ‘Of course you will publish an account of [your discovery]. You will then say whether the insect can fly well through the air. My wife asked, “How did he find that it stayed four hours under water without breathing?” I answered at once: “Mrs. Lubbock sat four hours watching.” I wonder whether I am right.’[114]

But Darwin did not demand that the woman he loved should share all his professional ardor. He loved her for other things, which he found in her sufficingly and inexhaustibly, for her patience, her thoughtfulness, her quick and vivacious sympathy and understanding, and the general charm of her character. In a passage of his Autobiography not published till after Mrs. Darwin’s death he said of her: ‘She has been my greatest blessing.... I do not believe she has ever missed an opportunity of doing a kind action to any one near her. I marvel at my good fortune that she, so infinitely my superior in every moral quality, consented to be my wife.’[115] And in the ardor of indiscriminating affection he adds a note of eulogy which could not perhaps be justly written by any one of any one: ‘I can declare that in my whole life I have never heard her utter one word I would rather have been unsaid.’[116]

Darwin’s constant ill-health gave a peculiar quality of intimate dependence to his relation to her whose care did most to make the ill-health tolerable, and Darwin’s son bears emphatic witness to the unfailing devotion, thoughtfulness, and efficacy of that care. ‘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.’[117] Only those who have known the situation can fully appreciate the restraint and constraint involved in such chronic invalidism, not only for the one who bears, but perhaps still more for the one who must watch, and sympathize, and shield, and protect, and as far as possible keep off the pressure and strain of the crowding, noisy, bustling, indifferent world.

It is true that Mrs. Darwin was spared some of the more trying elements of such invalidism. It too often carries with it impatience, irritability, ill-temper, complaint, or at any rate a moody depression which refuses to be comforted or dissipated. We have seen that Darwin confessed to some quickness of temper in youth, but there appears to have been no sign of it whatever during the years of illness. He was not only gentle and considerate, he was almost always cheerful, even gay, and relished having love and cheerfulness and gayety about him. As Mrs. Darwin charmingly puts it: ‘It is a great happiness to me when Charles is most unwell that he continues just as sociable as ever, and is not like the rest of the Darwins, who will not say how they really are; but he always tells me how he feels and never wants to be alone, but continues just as warmly affectionate as ever, so that I feel I am a comfort to him.’[118] Nor is there any sign of growing selfishness. An invalid must in a measure protect himself, he must make certain demands, and in many cases these necessary demands tend to grow into the inconsiderate and the morbidly engrossing. It does not seem to have been so with Darwin. He thought of others before himself, and kept his own needs and his own discomforts as much in the background as possible.

Nevertheless, he was an invalid, and his wife was well and vigorous, and could have mingled largely and freely with the world, and would doubtless have enjoyed it. Instead, she gave her life to him, and he fully appreciated the beauty and the constancy of her devotion. As his son says: ‘In her presence he found his happiness, and through her his life—which might have been overshadowed by gloom—became one of content and quiet gladness.’[119] But I think I feel most the human depth of the broken notes which Mrs. Darwin herself entered, recording the very last hours and words of her husband’s life: ‘I will only put down his words afterwards—“I am not the least afraid of death.” “Remember what a good wife you have been to me.” “Tell all my children to remember how good they have been to me.” After the worst of the distress he said, “I was so sorry for you, but I could not help you.” Then, “I am glad of it,” when told I was lying down. “Don’t call her; I don’t want her.” Said often, “It’s almost worth while to be sick to be nursed by you.”’[120]

In his relations with his children Darwin is quite as winning as in that with his wife. He had a huge household of them, ten in all, boys and girls. His home-keeping habits brought him closely into contact with them, and he loved them, and they loved him. It is true that he appreciates the conflict of family cares with the one all-absorbing pursuit of life, appreciates it and states it with almost tragic force and compactness: ‘Children are one’s greatest happiness, but often and often a still greater misery. A man of science ought to have none—perhaps not a wife; for then there would be nothing in this wide world worth caring for, and a man might (whether he could is another question) work away like a Trojan.’[121] With which it is interesting to compare the similar complaint of an equally devoted father, Thomas Moore: ‘My anxiety about these children almost embitters all my enjoyment of them.’[122]

But the anxiety arose simply from an excess of thought and care and fondness, and assuredly few fathers have been more devoted than Darwin was. There is no sign whatever that he was severe or harsh in his discipline. His son says that he never spoke an angry word to one of his children in his life. Yet he somehow managed to get things done as he wished: ‘I am certain that it never entered our heads to disobey him.’[123] The ease and comradeship with which he worked appear in one anecdote told by Francis: ‘He came into the drawing-room and found Leonard dancing about on the sofa, which was forbidden, for the sake of the springs, and said, “Oh, Lenny, Lenny, that’s against all rules,” and received for answer, “Then, I think you’d better go out of the room.”’[124] But I do not imagine that Leonard did any more dancing.

The basis of all discipline was sympathy and understanding, just as these were the basis of Darwin’s dealings with his fellow-scientists; and in his respect for his children’s personality and individuality he seems to have anticipated the ideas of a later age. His daughter says: ‘Another characteristic of his treatment of his children was his respect for their liberty, and for their personality.... 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.’[125]

We have already seen what care Darwin took at all times in regard to his childrens’ comfort in money matters. There was the same solicitude in all their affairs, as to their education, their conduct, and especially their prospects and their pursuits and occupations in life. He was always ready with advice and counsel when they were wanted. But he did not intrude them unduly, and above all things he did not insist upon their acceptance, or urge that his opinion and maxims should be made the rule of procedure. How admirably characteristic is his saying that ‘he hoped none of his sons would ever believe anything because he said it, unless they were themselves convinced of its truth.’[126]

It is, it seems to me, merely delightful to feel that through all this interest and affection Darwin was constantly using his children, as he used himself, and everybody else, as material for the abstract scientific observation which was the main interest of his life. ‘My first child was born on December 27th, 1839,’ he tells us, ‘and I at once commenced to make notes on the first dawn of the various expressions which he exhibited.’[217] How many fathers would have done as much? And the constant, watchful observation was continued at all times.

But it did not in the least interfere with the abundant, overflowing, sympathetic affection. And the affection was not distant, of the sort which adores but cannot enter in. His son indeed points out that health prevented his father’s romping with the children or taking part in any rough play. But he shared their games, so far as he could, with eager interest and keen enjoyment, and made them feel that he was one of themselves and as themselves. When they all went off on a holiday, he entered into it with a youthfulness of enthusiasm which intensified the enthusiasm of everybody. He liked to have the children about, even if they interrupted his work, as they too frequently did; such a multitude of them in a house would be likely to. Especially when they were ill, his sympathetic care and watchfulness were soothing and comforting. His daughter quotes one of his cousins as a witness that ‘in our house the only place where you might be sure of not meeting a child, was the nursery. Many a time, even during my father’s working hours, was a sick child tucked up on his sofa, to be quiet, and safe, and soothed by his presence.’[218]

Dread of the children’s illness and death at times haunted and oppressed him. Thus he writes to Hooker: ‘To the day of my death I shall never forget all the sickening fear about the other children, after our poor little baby died.’[219] And the depth of his grief after losing his little daughter Annie appears quietly but profoundly in the letters written at that time.

As years passed, Darwin’s relation to his children reached its climax of comradeship in the constant assistance they gave him in his work. His daughter helped him clerically, and his sons, who had scientific interests of their own, participated actively and most profitably in his labors. Sometimes he made use of their keen wits to sharpen and clarify his: ‘Two of my grown-up children who are acute reasoners have two or three times at intervals tried to prove me wrong; and when your letter came they had another try, but ended by coming back to my side.’[220] Whatever the nature of the assistance might be, Darwin was always profoundly grateful for it, and his children speak particularly of the simple, humble fashion in which his gratitude was expressed. It was a pleasure to help him in any way, because you were sure that the help would be used as you meant it and would be thoroughly appreciated.

And in general I do not know that the beauty of Darwin’s relation to his children can be better expressed than in the words of his son, equally honorable to son and to father: ‘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.’[221]

IV

Though Darwin’s social activity was necessarily restricted by his ill-health, his devotion to special friends was as sweet and notable as his devotion to his family. Indeed, friendship, the natural turning to sympathetic spirits, and clinging to them with constant loyalty, seems to have been a peculiarly profound and powerful instinct in him. He took a deep interest in all his friends’ affairs, and poured out all his own interests to them with intimate and appealing effusiveness. In writing of his grandfather, he says: ‘There is, perhaps, no safer test of a man’s real character than that of his long continued friendship with good and able men.’[222] Assuredly, if the test is applied to himself, he bears it nobly.

Of his longing for friendship and great aptness for it in boyhood he speaks very positively: ‘I had many friends amongst the schoolboys, whom I loved dearly, and I think that my disposition was then very affectionate.’[223] His son says that the friendships of mature life had not quite the zest and passion of those of youth; but the son adds with justice that no one who reads his father’s letters can feel that his later affections were lacking in intensity or depth.[224]

There can be no doubt that Darwin’s influence over his friends was very great, probably all the more so because he was so unassertive and disinclined to interfere or to dictate. Sir John Lubbock is said to have ‘owed to the great Charles Darwin even a larger debt in the respect of character formation than in the encouragement and direction of his mental gifts.’[225] Darwin did not hesitate to advise urgently and warmly, where he felt that advice was needed. For example, he writes to Hooker about his health: ‘Take warning by me, and do not work too hard. For God’s sake, think of this.’[226] He did not hesitate to differ, or to question, or to argue, when he thought his friends were wrong, and he could set them right.

At the same time, owing to his humility and natural self-effacement, the chief impression one gets from the intimate personal correspondence is that of turning to friends for counsel, encouragement, and support. Not that he was not amply able and ready to stand on his own feet; but to develop his views and arguments to others seemed to clarify them and to give them added force and significance for himself: ‘I will write no more, which is a great virtue in me; for it is to me a very great pleasure telling you everything I do.’[227] Honor, commendation, appreciation, when they came from the public, were all very well; but their value and their charm were doubled when they came from those one loved. Thus, he writes in regard to a letter of Hooker, congratulating him on the receipt of a medal: ‘I then opened yours, and such is the effect of warmth, friendship, and kindness from one that is loved, that the very same fact, told as you told it, made me glow with pleasure till my very heart throbbed.’[228] I have already alluded to his expressions of gratitude and appreciation for all the support and assistance that his friends gave him; but the expression is so tender, and so constant, and so thoroughly characteristic, that it cannot be too much insisted upon.

Nor was Darwin’s affection for his friends lacking in the practical side any more than in the sentimental. He was ready to give his time and his strength in their service, though time was so limited and strength so much needed and so essential. When utter prostration makes assistance impossible, he reproaches himself bitterly, and zealously offers to make up the defect. As when he writes to Hooker: ‘I write now to say that I am uneasy in my conscience about hesitating to look over your proofs, but I was feeling miserably unwell and shattered when I wrote. I do not suppose I could be of hardly any use, but if I could, pray send me any proofs. I should be (and I fear I was) the most ungrateful man to hesitate to do anything for you after some fifteen or more years’ help from you.’[229] Or, in slighter matters, the sacrifice is given a humorous turn, as when Darwin visits his old friend Sedgwick and allows himself to be put through the sights of the Museum without protest though he suffers for the effort for a long time afterwards: ‘Is it not humiliating to be thus killed by a man of eighty-six, who evidently never dreamed that he was killing me?’[230]

And if time and strength, so vital and in general miserly hoarded, were not spared, it is easy to imagine that money was not. Scientists are not always wealthy, and their researches require ample means for their prosecution. Scientists wear themselves out in eager toil and then are too often hard put to it for funds with which to recuperate. Darwin was always watchful, interested, ready, generous, and best of all unobtrusive in supplying these needs. If his closest friend and supporter Huxley broke down, Darwin was quick to head a subscription to make recovery possible. If he heard that a fellow-worker in Germany, who was accomplishing great results with small means, was hampered and embarrassed for lack of books, he writes at once: ‘Forgive me, but why should you not order through your brother Hermann, books, etc., to the amount of £100, and I would send a check to him as soon as I heard the exact amount? This would be no inconvenience to me; on the contrary, it would be an honor and lasting pleasure to me to have aided you in your invaluable scientific work to this small and trifling extent.’[231]

But the merely material relation of support and assistance was a small affair compared to the profound affection which Darwin seemed peculiarly calculated to convey and inspire. The note of this affection sounds through all his correspondence and gives it a more winning quality than almost anything else. How deep and strong was his friends’ regard for him is nicely indicated in the passage in which Huxley analyzes the bearing of it upon his work and success: ‘I cannot agree with you, again, that the acceptance of Darwin’s views was in any way influenced by the strong affection entertained for him by many of his friends. What the affection really did was to lead those of his friends who had seen good reason for his views to take much more trouble in his defense and support and to strike out much harder at his adversary than they would otherwise have done. This is pardonable, if not justifiable—that which you suggest would to my mind be neither.’[232]

As for Darwin’s own feeling, I know nothing that brings it home more vividly, when one considers his zeal for his work and for success with it, than the passage in which he declares such success and everything else to be trash beside love: “Talk of fame, honor, pleasure, wealth, all are dirt compared with affection; and this is a doctrine which, I know, from your letter, that you will agree with from the bottom of your heart.’[233] After which I think we may conclude generally that few human beings have been more endowed than Charles Darwin with tenderness and sympathy for all created things.’