Thus there are times of discouragement and disgust. One gets to feel that one has utterly overestimated one’s work and one’s powers. One concocts ‘pleasant little stinging remarks for reviews, such as “Mr. Darwin’s head seems to have been turned by a certain degree of success, and he thinks that the most trifling observations are worth publication.”’[296] One concludes that all the years of vast labor have been given to no valid result and that one had better have cultivated one’s cabbages with health and quietness: ‘At present I feel sick of everything, and if I could occupy my time and forget my daily discomforts, or rather miseries, I would never publish another word.’[297] Such periods of depression in Darwin are peculiarly interesting, because he was by no means of a melancholy temperament, nor, in spite of his nervous weakness, was he inclined to a fretful or morbid pessimism. Yet, even with all his courage and all his patience, with all his past labor and all his victory, there were moments toward the end when the grave seemed inviting for its mere vastness of repose, without any definite prospect of anything further: ‘I am rather despondent about myself, and my troubles are of an exactly opposite nature to yours, for idleness is downright misery to me, as I find here, as I cannot forget my discomfort for an hour. I have not the heart or strength at my age to begin any investigation lasting years, which is the only thing which I enjoy; and I have no little jobs which I can do. So I must look forward to Down graveyard as the sweetest place on earth.’[372] VI