He was very fond of flowers, and also of dogs. When he had been absent from home, on his return his white fox-terrier, Polly, "would get wild with excitement, panting, squeaking, rushing round the room, and jumping on and off the chairs; and he used to stoop down, pressing her face to his, letting her lick him, and speaking to her with a peculiarly tender, caressing voice." He was very tender-hearted. A friend who often visited at Down told me that Mrs. Darwin one day urged her husband to punish the little dog for some wrong-doing. He took the animal tenderly in his arms and carried her out-of-doors, patting her gently on the head. "Why, Charles," remonstrated the wife, "she did not feel it." He replied, "I could do no more." "The remembrance of screams or other sounds heard in Brazil," says Francis Darwin, "when he was powerless to interfere with what he believed to be the torture of a slave, haunted him for years, especially at night. In smaller matters, when he could interfere, he did so vigorously. He returned one day from his walk pale and faint from having seen a horse ill-used, and from the agitation of violently remonstrating with the man. On another occasion he saw a horse-breaker teaching his son to ride. The little boy was frightened, and the man was rough. My father stopped, and, jumping out of the carriage, reproved the man in no measured terms.... "A visitor, driving from Orpington to Down, told the man to go faster. 'Why,' said the driver, 'if I had whipped the horse _this_ much driving Mr. Darwin, he would have got out of the carriage and abused me well.'" His manner was bright and animated, and his face glowed in conversation. He enjoyed fun, had a merry, ringing laugh, and a happy way of turning things. He said once, "Gray (Asa Gray of Harvard College) often takes me to task for making hasty generalizations; but the last time he was here talking that way, I said to him, 'Now, Gray, I have one more generalization to make, which is not hasty; and that is, the Americans are the most delightful people I know.'" "He was particularly charming when 'chaffing' any one," says his son, "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. When my father had several guests, he managed them well, getting a talk with each, or bringing two or three together round his chair.... "My father much enjoyed wandering slowly in the garden with my mother or some of his children, or making one of a party sitting out on a bench on the lawn; he generally sat, however, on the grass, and I remember him often lying under one of the big lime-trees, with his head on the green mound at its foot."