Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1Darwin, Charles
History
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1
Darwin, Charles
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Correspondence
In the non-biological sciences he felt keen sympathy with work of which
he could not really judge. For instance, he used to read nearly the
whole of 'Nature,' though so much of it deals with mathematics and
physics. I have often heard him say that he got a kind of satisfaction
in reading articles which (according to himself) he could not
understand. I wish I could reproduce the manner in which he would laugh
at himself for it.
It was remarkable, too, how he kept up his interest in subjects at which
he had formerly worked. This was strikingly the case with geology. In
one of his letters to Mr. Judd he begs him to pay him a visit, saying
that since Lyell's death he hardly ever gets a geological talk. His
observations, made only a few years before his death, on the upright
pebbles in the drift at Southampton, and discussed in a letter to Mr.
Geikie, afford another instance. Again, in the letters to Dr. Dohrn, he
shows how his interest in barnacles remained alive. I think it was all
due to the vitality and persistence of his mind--a quality I have heard
him speak of as if he felt that he was strongly gifted in that respect.
Not that he used any such phrases as these about himself, but he would
say that he had the power of keeping a subject or question more or less
before him for a great many years. The extent to which he possessed this
power appears when we consider the number of different problems which he
solved, and the early period at which some of them began to occupy him.
It was a sure sign that he was not well when he was idle at any times
other than his regular resting hours; for, as long as he remained
moderately well, there was no break in the regularity of his life.
Week-days and Sundays passed by alike, each with their stated intervals
of work and rest. It is almost impossible, except for those who watched
his daily life, to realise how essential to his well-being was the
regular routine that I have sketched: and with what pain and difficulty
anything beyond it was attempted. Any public appearance, even of the
most modest kind, was an effort to him. In 1871 he went to the little
village church for the wedding of his elder daughter, but he could
hardly bear the fatigue of being present through the short service. The
same may be said of the few other occasions on which he was present at
similar ceremonies.
I remember him many years ago at a christening; a memory which has
remained with me, because to us children it seemed an extraordinary and
abnormal occurrence. I remember his look most distinctly at his brother
Erasmus's funeral, as he stood in the scattering of snow, wrapped in a
long black funeral cloak, with a grave look of sad reverie.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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