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]