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]