DARWIN: THE LOVER
I
If Darwin was not conspicuous as a lover of God, he was at least
notable in every way as one who loved his fellow men. He liked to
meet people, liked to talk with them, liked to have them about
him. He was interested in humanity, enjoyed the contact of it, and
felt in others the warm throb of a heart that beat as kindly and
sympathetically as his own. Men, women, and children were drawn to
him and recognized a friend.
Of his personal appearance the chief impression that comes to us is
naturally in age. He was tall and powerfully built, and in his youth
must have been attractive to look at, though there is no definite
record of this. In later years his aspect was dignified without
being severe. ‘His face is massive,’ writes Norton to Ruskin, with
‘little beauty of feature, but much of expression.’[235] What seems
to have chiefly impressed observers was the eyes and the look in
them. Professor Osborn says: ‘The impression of Darwin’s bluish-gray
eyes, deep-set under overhanging brows, was that they were the
eyes of a man who could survey all nature.’[236] And Bryce agrees:
‘The feature which struck one most was the projecting brow with
its bushy eyebrows, and deep beneath it the large gray-blue eyes
with their clear and steady look. It was an alert look, as of one
accustomed to observing keenly, yet it was also calm and reflective.
There was a pleasant smile which came and passed readily, but the
chief impression made by the face was that of tranquil, patient
thoughtfulness, as of one whose mind had long been accustomed to fix
itself upon serious problems.’[237]
There is general testimony as to Darwin’s ready hospitality and eager
kindliness in greeting all those who came into his household. There
was no reserve or assumption of dignity, but a perfectly natural and
cordial desire and disposition to make every one feel at home. I do
not know any more impressive witness to this charm of manner than
Leslie Stephen, who was certainly not a man to be unduly carried
away. Stephen speaks of ‘the charm which no one to whom I have ever
spoken failed to perceive in his presence and in his writings.’[238]
And he elsewhere dwells upon it more elaborately: ‘He was in town
for a few days and most kindly called upon me. You may believe that
I was proud to welcome him, for of all eminent men that I have ever
seen he is beyond comparison the most attractive to me. There is
something almost pathetic in his simplicity and friendliness. I heard
a story the other day about a young German admirer whom Lubbock took
to see him. He could not summon up courage to speak to the great man;
but, when they came away, burst into tears. That is not my way; but I
sympathize to some extent with the enthusiastic Dutchman.’[239]
The accounts of Darwin’s conversation are as attractive as of his
appearance and manner. That he entered into it usually with intense
eagerness appears from his own account of his fatigue from it: ‘I
find that on my good days, when I can write for a couple of hours,
that anything which stirs me up like talking for half or even a
quarter of an hour, generally quite prostrates me, sometimes even for
a long time afterwards.’[240] But it is very evident that he did not
engross the talk and even after his high position was established had
not the slightest tendency to hold forth or deliver orations, as is
the habit of some distinguished men. Norton even declares that ‘His
talk is not often memorable on account of brilliancy or impressive
sayings—but it is always the expression of the qualities of mind and
heart which combine in such rare excellence in his genius.’[241]
Instead of himself talking to excess, he liked to draw his visitors
out, to get at their interests and their point of view, not in any
intrusive fashion, but with instinctive sympathy, and with his
natural modest sense that their affairs were more important than his
own. He clearly had in a high degree the exquisite art of listening
intelligently, and of asking questions which would bring out all that
was best and most profitable in the person with whom he happened to
be talking. This well appears in Charles Kingsley’s account of his
first interview with him: ‘I was deeply moved at meeting for the
first time Darwin. I trembled before him like a boy, and longed to
tell him all I felt for him, but dare not, lest he should think me a
flatterer extravagant. But the modesty and simplicity of his genius
was charming. Instead of teaching, he only wanted to learn, instead
of talking, to listen, till I found him asking me to write papers
which he could as yet hardly write himself—ignorant in his grand
simplicity of my ignorance and of his own wisdom.’[242]
The conversation was not by any means always serious. It does not
appear that Darwin had any great enjoyment of humorous literature.
Nor was he inclined to witty flings or brilliant repartee. His mind
worked too slowly for a rapid-fire exchange of this sort. It was only
occasionally that he hit out at a promising interlocutor, as when
he remarked to Lady Derby, who had been describing her remarkable
peculiarities of vision, ‘Ah, Lady Derby, how I should like to
dissect you.’[243] Above all, he had no taste for the satirical or
bitter, and it was only under extreme provocation that he could write
to Huxley: ‘God bless you!—get well, be idle, and always reverence a
bishop.’[244]
But he was full of genial, kindly fun, and was ready to see the
laughable side of little incidents and even great. He laughed
heartily and frequently and with an infectious gayety and buoyancy.
He liked merry and humorous talk, with plenty of anecdote and
sparkle, and he was ready to chaff and joke his friends and to take
the same sort of thing himself. He was even willing to find a comic
side in the sacred subject of natural selection and to turn his
own deepest interests into matter for smiles when the occasion was
suitable. Thus he writes to Lubbock, of his son: ‘See what it is to
be well trained. Horace said to me yesterday, “If every one would
kill adders they would come to sting less.” I answered, “Of course
they would, for there would be fewer.” He replied indignantly: “I
did not mean that; but the timid adders which run away would be
saved, and in time they would never sting at all.” Natural selection
of cowards!’[245]
In Darwin’s later years he might of course have been crowded with
social engagements all the time. Everybody wanted to see him, to
know him, to talk with him, to entertain him. The preoccupation of
his work and the limitations of his health made any such social
activity impossible, and it is not likely that he greatly missed it.
Yet, wherever he went, he was welcome, his society was appreciated,
not only for his reputation, but for itself, and when he could get
about, it evidently gave him pleasure: ‘I dined with Bell at the
Linnean Club, and liked my dinner ... dining out is such a novelty
to me that I enjoyed it.’[246] At an earlier period, when there was
more strength to spare for such diversions, he entered into them with
hearty enthusiasm, and even, it appears, with a thorough rollicking
zest. When he settled himself in Cambridge, after his return from
the Beagle voyage, he complained that the only trouble was that
life was too pleasant and some agreeable party every evening made
morning labor rather difficult.[247] And of the miscellaneous social
gatherings of still earlier days he writes: ‘We used often to dine
together in the evening, though these dinners often included men of
a higher stamp, and we sometimes drank too much, with jolly singing
and playing at cards afterwards. I know that I ought to feel ashamed
of days and evenings thus spent, but as some of my friends were very
pleasant, and we were all in the highest spirits, I cannot help
looking back to these times with much pleasure.’[248]
In the matter of sports and diversions Darwin’s tastes seem to have
run rather to those which are not in their nature social, though what
attracted him was the character of the sports themselves, and not the
element of solitude. In his youth he was passionately fond of outdoor
sport, of fishing and hunting. He had a keen love for angling, he
says, and would sit for hours watching his float in some solitary
pool or stream, though when some one told him that he could kill the
angle worms with salt and water instead of spitting them on the hook,
it was a great relief to his feelings.[249] He was especially eager
with a gun, and long before he took the slightest interest in the
scientific study of birds, he liked to kill them. He tells us that
the killing of his first snipe excited him so much that he trembled
till it was difficult to reload his gun. Even after his scientific
interest had begun to develop, he dropped every vestige of it in the
shooting season: ‘at that time I should have thought myself mad to
give up the first days of partridge-shooting for geology or any other
science.’[250]
He became an excellent shot and, as his son says, had all his life a
remarkable power of coördinating his movements, so that he was not
only accurate with a gun, but in throwing, and after he was a grown
man, simply to test his skill, he threw a marble at a cross-beak
and killed it: ‘He was so unhappy at having uselessly killed the
cross-beak that he did not mention it for years, and then explained
that he should never have thrown at it if he had not felt sure that
his old skill had gone from him.’[251] Perhaps the most striking
witness to the depth of Darwin’s passion for these field sports is
the unusually harsh remark of his father who loved his son and was
deeply beloved by him: ‘You care for nothing but shooting, dogs,
and rat-catching, and will be a disgrace to yourself and all your
family.’[252] Which is not the first case of imperfect prevision on
the part of a father, nor the last.
Of games that are more essentially social, there is no indication
that Darwin was an ardent practitioner. When he was at school he
played ‘batfives,’[253] but there is no mention of football or
cricket. In describing his personal tastes in later years, he speaks
of cards with something of contempt: ‘Have not played for many years,
but I am sure I should not remember.’[254] His tone about them in
1842, however, is quite different: ‘This walk was rather too much for
me, and I was dull till whist, which I enjoyed beyond measure.’[255]
In 1859, the year of the ‘Origin,’ he set up a billiard-table, ‘and
I find it does me a deal of good, and drives the horrid species
out of my head.’[256] But his special pleasure in the game line
was backgammon, which he played with Mrs. Darwin, year after year,
keeping a score of victories and defeats, getting or pretending to
be, greatly excited over his failures and even indignant at his
antagonist’s good-fortune. In 1875 he wrote to Asa Gray: ‘Pray give
our very kind remembrances to Mrs. Gray. I know that she likes to
hear men boasting, it refreshes them so much. Now the tally with my
wife in backgammon stands thus: she, poor creature, has won only 2490
games, whilst I have won, hurrah, hurrah, 2795 games.’[257]
But through it all Darwin’s humanity is evident everywhere. He loved
his fellow-creatures, loved to mix with them, and to have them care
for him, and his interest went far deeper than a mere, though
absorbing, curiosity as to their animal origin.
II
The drawback to Darwin’s social life, as to his power of work, was in
the limitations of health, and if we would fully appreciate not only
the heroism of his achievement, but the charm of his character, we
must understand how great and far-reaching those limitations were.
The natural strength and vigor of his sturdily constructed frame
endured through youth and in the main through the Beagle voyage,
in spite of the persistent sea-sickness; but from shortly after
his return to England on, his life was nothing but a more or less
relieved and varying chronic invalidism.
The effect of this upon his scientific labors I have indicated
earlier. It hampered them at every step. He could work but a few
hours in the morning and after that the constant effort and lesson
was in the endeavor to forget; ‘It is so weariful, killing the whole
afternoon, after 12 o’clock, doing nothing whatever.’[258] A piece
of investigation, which required perhaps the most nice and constant
watchfulness, had to be abandoned in the middle, because recurring
and increasing symptoms absolutely demanded that complete rest
should be taken. It was necessary not only to stop working, but to
stop thinking, and for a brain eager and absorbed as Darwin’s was,
this was enormously difficult.
With social life the limitation was equally vexatious. It is true
that there are certain compensations about such a state of things. A
successful and prominent man who has his health is expected to meet
all sorts of social demands and strains which consume his time to
little purpose, and if he is not extremely careful of himself and
does not sometimes push insistence even to the point of rudeness, he
finds his work interfered with almost as much as by ill-health, or
it may be even more. There are many times when delicate health is a
convenient and useful excuse, and Darwin recognized this very fully:
‘Even ill-health, though it has annihilated several years of my life,
has saved me from the distractions of society and amusement.’[259]
But the compensation was not always appreciated. When indigestion
preserved you from boredom, you might be grateful; but when it cut
you off from seeing your best friends, when it deprived you of that
exchange of scientific ideas which is the keenest and most fruitful
stimulus for achievement, then you could not but repine a little.
The excitement, the enthusiasm of eager talk, made you forget
yourself and your symptoms for the time. But there was the inevitable
afterwards, and gradually you learned that restraint was necessary.
‘Even talking of an evening for less than two hours has twice
recently brought on such violent vomiting and trembling that I dread
coming up to London.’[260] Simple comments like this, often repeated,
show how intense and how crippling the weakness was.
What is notable about this matter of Darwin’s ill-health is that
it bred no bitterness. There is an occasional sigh of regret, a
touch of humorous complaint over the deprivations and the inability
to accomplish all that was desired: ‘Adios, my dear Hooker; do
be wise and good, and be careful of your stomach, within which,
as I know full well, lie intellect, conscience, temper, and the
affections.’[261] But there is not one trace of that sour pessimism,
that crabbed outcry against the dispositions of Providence and of the
universe which chronic invalidism is so apt to produce.
When we come to look for the cause of Darwin’s troubles, it is
evident that at this distance of time we can hardly get a clear
enough account of the symptoms and the conditions to conjecture
with great definiteness, though the enlarged medical knowledge of
to-day might interpret matters that were then obscure. There was
sometimes a disposition to attribute the whole recurring misery of
later years to the Beagle sea-sickness. But Darwin himself rejected
this explanation and his son points out that the settled illness came
on only gradually some years after his return.[262] Darwin believed
that his bad health was due ‘to the hereditary fault which came out
as gout in some of the past generations.’[263] The specialists of
that day were quite at sea. ‘Dr. Brinton has been here,’ says Darwin;
‘he does not believe my brain or heart primarily affected, but I have
been so steadily going down hill, I cannot help doubting whether I
can ever crawl a little uphill again.’[264] It is amusing to see how
later speculators have exercised their wits upon the case. Dr. George
M. Gould, in his brilliant ‘Biographic Clinics,’ grouped Darwin
with Huxley, Tennyson, Browning, and a dozen others, as a victim of
eye-strain, and believed all his trouble could have been disposed of
by properly refracting glasses. With the development of glandular
theories, Darwin’s thyroid, pituitary, and adrenal secretions have
been set down as excessive or deficient. With his build, he would
certainly have been a promising subject for the experiments of the
orthopædist, while the dietitian would have prescribed unlimited
spinach and carrots, the osteopath would have discovered disastrous
subluxations in the spine, and the psycho-analyst would see the
foundation of the whole trouble in disordered complexes. And all
of them would have some symptomatic justification, and all of them
would have been eager to work over the poor man, as they have done
over many another such, with mountains of expectation and promise and
outlay, and too often a pitiful mouse of result.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, the specialist was not quite so
rampant in Darwin’s day, and while later scientific developments
might, or might not, have cured him, he escaped a good deal of
unprofitable discomfort. The water cure was fashionable at that time
and he was duly put through it, with some annoyance, and perhaps with
a little improvement: ‘One most singular effect of the treatment
is that it induces in most people, and eminently in my case, the
most complete stagnation of mind. I have ceased to think even of
barnacles.’[265]
But pending the discovery of some miraculous cure, the only help
seemed to be in persistent care, self-control, and discipline. It
was necessary to be careful as to eating, and here Darwin appears to
have been generally abstemious, though he had a taste for sweets,
which he sometimes indulged with humorous excuses and a clear
prevision of the bad results that were likely to follow, and did.
As to alcohol, even in his earlier years when boisterous excess in
drinking was common enough, Darwin was not much inclined to anything
of the sort. He does indeed tell of gay supper-parties, where too
much wine was drunk. His son records his confession, in answer to
a query as to early habits, that ‘he was ashamed to say he had
once drunk too much at Cambridge.’[266] And Grant Duff mentions a
curious remark, which seems well vouched for but is hard to believe:
‘Hooker, who is staying here, amused us by saying that Darwin had
told him that he had got drunk three times in early life, and thought
intoxication the greatest of all pleasures.’[267] Whether he thought
so or not, he did not often indulge in it. And as he grew older, he
abandoned wine almost entirely, so that when she was engaged his
future wife could write: ‘I don’t think it of as much consequence
as she does that Charles drinks no wine, but I think it a pleasant
thing.’[268] He smoked cigarettes more or less, and found them
restful, but he certainly did not overdo the habit. His favorite
indulgence was snuff-taking, which was given up and renewed much
after the fashion of Lamb’s tobacco. Of his efforts in this direction
he writes, with humor: ‘I am personally in a state of utmost
confusion also, for my cruel wife has persuaded me to leave off snuff
for a month; and I am most lethargic, stupid, and melancholy in
consequence.’[269]
The chief element in Darwin’s care of his health, however, was
persistent rest. All his days were systematically planned, the few
hours that could be given to it set apart for work, and the rest
devoted to some form of relaxation or needed repose. There were long
nights, if not for sleep, at least for physical tranquillity, and
there were afternoons and evenings spent largely on the sofa, in chat
or in listening to music or to stories of purely diverting quality.
Any interruption of this carefully arranged schedule was avoided, if
possible, and almost always had to be paid for. Thus, by persistent,
systematic, rigid self-control, and by sacrificing days and months
and years to a comparatively tedious indolence, Darwin gained the few
hours that were essential for the work that shook the world.
In one respect he was extremely fortunate. If he was hampered by
ill-health, he at least had ample means to make that ill-health
as tolerable as possible. He did not know the misery of having to
support yourself and your family and being physically unable to do
it. Without wholly endorsing the sarcastic remark of Butler, ‘The
worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next
his health, and the third his reputation,’ one can see some truth
in it, especially when the possession of money serves to make the
loss of health more endurable. Darwin’s father was very successful
financially. He provided for all his children in the most liberal
fashion during his life, and left them in comfortable circumstances
after his death, and Darwin often refers to this with gratitude and
appreciation. The son seems to have had abundant means to keep up a
considerable establishment, to educate and provide for his own large
family, to indulge in general benefaction, and to do if not all he
wished, at least a great deal in the way of scientific investigation
and experiment.
In later years a considerable income from the published books was
naturally added to the supply that was inherited. Darwin was proud of
his earning in this way, and he had reason to be, although he could
hardly boast of such returns as were received by his contemporary
Trollope. One is chiefly impressed, however, with his extreme anxiety
that others should be treated fairly, and that no one should suffer
by his gains. Thus he writes to his publisher, in a tone which
publishers will I think recognize as not usual: ‘You are really too
generous about the, to me, scandalously heavy corrections. Are you
acting fairly towards yourself? Would it not be better at least to
share the £72 8s? I shall be fully satisfied, for I had no business
to send, though quite unintentionally and unexpectedly, such badly
composed MS to the printers.’[270]
One of the consequences of Darwin’s delicate health was, that he was
more or less anxious about money. When you can count on your physical
strength for fighting circumstance, you can float cheerfully out
into the world and let your daily support come where you can get it.
But if you are weak, crippled, and hampered, if you are absolutely
dependent upon the comforts which others merely enjoy but can do
without, you look with dread upon the possibility of losing what
alone assures you of the indispensable. Darwin was not altogether
free from this feeling, and his son tells us that he was haunted
by the fear that his children would not have health to earn their
own living yet might be obliged to do so.[271] In consequence he was
always thoughtful and careful in money matters. He looked after his
investments with shrewd intelligence, and respected the faculty of
making money and keeping it. He was not above saving a penny where
it could be done, and especially he was exact and systematic about
his expenditure. His biographer says that ‘he kept accounts with
great care, classifying them, and balancing at the end of the year
like a merchant. I remember the quick way in which he would reach
out for his account book to enter each check paid, as though he
were in a hurry to get it entered before he had forgotten it.’[272]
An interesting contradiction to this financial exactitude and to
Darwin’s ordinary habits of accuracy is his inveterate carelessness
in not dating or not fully dating his letters.
The financial exactitude and anxiety do not for a moment imply that
he was not liberal and generous in the highest degree, as perhaps the
wisest, and even the largest generosity, comes with such prevision
and forethought. He spent freely on his current living, and he was
particularly considerate, not only in giving to his family, but
in the manner of giving, which sometimes seems to count for even
more. His son speaks of his thoughtful kindness in attending to
financial arrangements, and emphasizes his generosity in paying
college debts, ‘making it almost seem a virtue in me to have told
him of them.’[273] Nor was the generosity confined to his family.
It was broad and luminous in its working, and there are constant
references to the causes to which Darwin sent his check, with no
ostentation, but with the earnest desire to do good. His limitations
of strength made it difficult for him to go about largely in his home
neighborhood, but the poor people knew him and loved him, and he was
ready and glad to assist them when possible. As Bryce says, ‘he was
a kind and helpful neighbor to the humble folk who lived round him
at Down.’[274] Especially he was glad to give not only his time and
his limited strength, but his money, to aiding those who were doing
scientific work of any sort. And in brief, in this connection of
general kindliness it is worth while to note the remark of the devout
old woman who was told that Darwin would go to hell for his wicked
doctrines and answered: ‘God Almighty can’t afford to do without so
good a man.’[194]
III
It was a natural consequence of invalidism that Darwin’s social
habits and inclinations were conspicuous in the domestic circle.
He seems to have been kindly and considerate with every one in the
household, and the servants liked him, though they were sometimes
puzzled by his pursuits, as when a gardener remarked that he thought
Mr. Darwin would be better if he had more to do. It was very rare
that he got out of temper with those who worked for him, and he
dreaded having to scold any one because he knew that he was liable to
say more than he meant.[195] His son tells us, ‘when I overheard a
servant being scolded, and my father speaking angrily, it impressed
me as an appalling circumstance.’[196] In general his manner was
courteous and conciliatory and he appeared more as if he were asking
a favor than giving an order. When he was overcome by illness, in the
very last days, he refused to allow a neighbor’s butler either to
call a cab or to accompany him home, as he was unwilling to give so
much trouble.
Darwin’s extreme love for all domestic animals I have already
indicated negatively in dealing with his dislike of cruelty and
ill-treatment, but the love was always positive and showed itself
in constant interest and attention and care. One instance of
much regretted sin in this regard is amusingly recorded in the
Autobiographical Sketch: ‘Once as a very little boy whilst at the day
school, or before that time, I acted cruelly, for I beat a puppy, I
believe, simply from enjoying the sense of power; but the beating
could not have been severe, for the puppy did not howl, of which I
feel sure, as the spot was near the house. This act lay heavily on
my conscience, as is shown by my remembering the exact spot where
the crime was committed.’[107] But the crime was not repeated in
later life. Even to the pigeons, which he raised for purposes of
scientific investigation Darwin became greatly attached: ‘I love them
to that extent,’ he says, ‘that I cannot bear to kill and skeletonize
them.’[108] His dogs were matter of interest and delight and intense
affection to him always. And dogs of all kinds seemed to be drawn to
him. As a young man his sister’s pets would follow him instead of
her, and with the dog of a friend at Cambridge it was the same. Dogs
were not only the subject of his minute observations for the study
of expression, they were his companions in his daily walks and his
intimate friends.
For all the members of his family Darwin’s affection was deep,
solid, and lasting. The tenderness with which he regarded his
father’s memory is, it seems to me, somewhat unusual: ‘I do not think
any one could love a father much more than I did mine, and I do not
believe three or four days ever pass without my still thinking of
him.’[109] The tenderness shows especially in the long sketch of
his father’s character, which is far less qualified with critical
comments than one would expect from Darwin’s naturally analytical
disposition, and always where his affection was concerned the
analysis seemed to drop somewhat into abeyance. His references to his
brothers and sisters also show in simple earnestness how much they
meant in his life.
[Illustration: EMMA DARWIN AT THIRTY-ONE]
Naturally the most prominent figure in the domestic circle is Mrs.
Darwin, and the depth and endurance of Darwin’s affection for her are
everywhere evident. There is no record or intimation of any earlier
attachment or love-affair. Very likely there were such, but neither
Darwin nor his biographers give any hint of them. We have seen that
he liked pretty women in novels, and occasionally in his books he
makes some reference to feminine attraction. His daughter tells us
that ‘He was often in love with the heroines of the many novels
that were read to him, and used always to maintain both in books
and real life that a touch of affectation was necessary to complete
the charm of a pretty woman.’[110] The daughter finds it difficult
to understand what this means, as her father had such a horror of
affectation in general. It seems to me at any rate to mean that he
did not take love-making very seriously, and there is certainly no
sign that it ever much disturbed his life.
Even when he was engaged, his love for Emma Wedgwood does not seem
to have been of the kind that stings and burns. His letters to her
that have been printed are gentle, considerate, and sympathetic: they
exhibit none of the torments that self-doubting and self-spurring and
ardently exultant passion are inclined to. In the most attractive
of them he writes: ‘Excuse this much egotism—I give it you because
I think you will humanize me, and soon teach me there is greater
happiness than building theories and accumulating facts in silence
and solitude. My own dearest Emma, I earnestly pray, you may
never regret the great, and I will add very good deed, you are
to perform on the Tuesday.’[111] And he adds playfully: ‘I want
practice in ill-treating the female sex—I did not observe Lyell
had any compunction; I hope to harden my conscience in time: few
husbands seem to find it difficult to effect this.’[112] Everything
is right and as it should be. But the tone is not that of some
love-letters I have seen, and this is the more notable, considering
the extraordinary frankness and directness of Darwin’s correspondence
generally.
But if Darwin’s conjugal attachment did not begin with violence and
high-wrought passion, it continued and deepened and strengthened
with broad sunny richness to the end of his life. And this was just
as true, although Mrs. Darwin had no particular affection for his
scientific pursuits. I have said elsewhere that she assisted him,
and in his work as in everything else she was eager to do her wifely
duty and help where she could. But she had no love for the work in
itself, and her daughter remarks that though in the beginning she had
resolved to enter into her husband’s tastes, she found it impossible.
‘He used to tell how during some lecture at the British Association
he said to her, “I am afraid this is very wearisome to you,” to
which she quietly answered, “Not more than all the rest,”’[113]
And in writing to Lubbock he makes gentle fun of her indifference:
‘Of course you will publish an account of [your discovery]. You
will then say whether the insect can fly well through the air. My
wife asked, “How did he find that it stayed four hours under water
without breathing?” I answered at once: “Mrs. Lubbock sat four hours
watching.” I wonder whether I am right.’[114]
But Darwin did not demand that the woman he loved should share all
his professional ardor. He loved her for other things, which he
found in her sufficingly and inexhaustibly, for her patience, her
thoughtfulness, her quick and vivacious sympathy and understanding,
and the general charm of her character. In a passage of his
Autobiography not published till after Mrs. Darwin’s death he said
of her: ‘She has been my greatest blessing.... I do not believe she
has ever missed an opportunity of doing a kind action to any one near
her. I marvel at my good fortune that she, so infinitely my superior
in every moral quality, consented to be my wife.’[115] And in the
ardor of indiscriminating affection he adds a note of eulogy which
could not perhaps be justly written by any one of any one: ‘I can
declare that in my whole life I have never heard her utter one word I
would rather have been unsaid.’[116]
Darwin’s constant ill-health gave a peculiar quality of intimate
dependence to his relation to her whose care did most to make the
ill-health tolerable, and Darwin’s son bears emphatic witness to the
unfailing devotion, thoughtfulness, and efficacy of that care. ‘For
all the latter years of his life she never left him for a night; and
her days were so planned that all his resting hours might be shared
with her.’[117] Only those who have known the situation can fully
appreciate the restraint and constraint involved in such chronic
invalidism, not only for the one who bears, but perhaps still more
for the one who must watch, and sympathize, and shield, and protect,
and as far as possible keep off the pressure and strain of the
crowding, noisy, bustling, indifferent world.
It is true that Mrs. Darwin was spared some of the more trying
elements of such invalidism. It too often carries with it impatience,
irritability, ill-temper, complaint, or at any rate a moody
depression which refuses to be comforted or dissipated. We have seen
that Darwin confessed to some quickness of temper in youth, but there
appears to have been no sign of it whatever during the years of
illness. He was not only gentle and considerate, he was almost always
cheerful, even gay, and relished having love and cheerfulness and
gayety about him. As Mrs. Darwin charmingly puts it: ‘It is a great
happiness to me when Charles is most unwell that he continues just as
sociable as ever, and is not like the rest of the Darwins, who will
not say how they really are; but he always tells me how he feels and
never wants to be alone, but continues just as warmly affectionate
as ever, so that I feel I am a comfort to him.’[118] Nor is there
any sign of growing selfishness. An invalid must in a measure
protect himself, he must make certain demands, and in many cases
these necessary demands tend to grow into the inconsiderate and the
morbidly engrossing. It does not seem to have been so with Darwin. He
thought of others before himself, and kept his own needs and his own
discomforts as much in the background as possible.
Nevertheless, he was an invalid, and his wife was well and vigorous,
and could have mingled largely and freely with the world, and would
doubtless have enjoyed it. Instead, she gave her life to him, and he
fully appreciated the beauty and the constancy of her devotion. As
his son says: ‘In her presence he found his happiness, and through
her his life—which might have been overshadowed by gloom—became one
of content and quiet gladness.’[119] But I think I feel most the
human depth of the broken notes which Mrs. Darwin herself entered,
recording the very last hours and words of her husband’s life: ‘I
will only put down his words afterwards—“I am not the least afraid
of death.” “Remember what a good wife you have been to me.” “Tell all
my children to remember how good they have been to me.” After the
worst of the distress he said, “I was so sorry for you, but I could
not help you.” Then, “I am glad of it,” when told I was lying down.
“Don’t call her; I don’t want her.” Said often, “It’s almost worth
while to be sick to be nursed by you.”’[120]
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]
We have already seen what care Darwin took at all times in regard
to his childrens’ comfort in money matters. There was the same
solicitude in all their affairs, as to their education, their
conduct, and especially their prospects and their pursuits and
occupations in life. He was always ready with advice and counsel
when they were wanted. But he did not intrude them unduly, and above
all things he did not insist upon their acceptance, or urge that
his opinion and maxims should be made the rule of procedure. How
admirably characteristic is his saying that ‘he hoped none of his
sons would ever believe anything because he said it, unless they were
themselves convinced of its truth.’[126]
It is, it seems to me, merely delightful to feel that through all
this interest and affection Darwin was constantly using his children,
as he used himself, and everybody else, as material for the abstract
scientific observation which was the main interest of his life.
‘My first child was born on December 27th, 1839,’ he tells us, ‘and
I at once commenced to make notes on the first dawn of the various
expressions which he exhibited.’[217] How many fathers would have
done as much? And the constant, watchful observation was continued at
all times.
But it did not in the least interfere with the abundant, overflowing,
sympathetic affection. And the affection was not distant, of the
sort which adores but cannot enter in. His son indeed points out
that health prevented his father’s romping with the children or
taking part in any rough play. But he shared their games, so far
as he could, with eager interest and keen enjoyment, and made them
feel that he was one of themselves and as themselves. When they all
went off on a holiday, he entered into it with a youthfulness of
enthusiasm which intensified the enthusiasm of everybody. He liked
to have the children about, even if they interrupted his work, as
they too frequently did; such a multitude of them in a house would be
likely to. Especially when they were ill, his sympathetic care and
watchfulness were soothing and comforting. His daughter quotes one of
his cousins as a witness that ‘in our house the only place where you
might be sure of not meeting a child, was the nursery. Many a time,
even during my father’s working hours, was a sick child tucked up on
his sofa, to be quiet, and safe, and soothed by his presence.’[218]
Dread of the children’s illness and death at times haunted and
oppressed him. Thus he writes to Hooker: ‘To the day of my death I
shall never forget all the sickening fear about the other children,
after our poor little baby died.’[219] And the depth of his grief
after losing his little daughter Annie appears quietly but profoundly
in the letters written at that time.
As years passed, Darwin’s relation to his children reached its climax
of comradeship in the constant assistance they gave him in his work.
His daughter helped him clerically, and his sons, who had scientific
interests of their own, participated actively and most profitably in
his labors. Sometimes he made use of their keen wits to sharpen and
clarify his: ‘Two of my grown-up children who are acute reasoners
have two or three times at intervals tried to prove me wrong; and
when your letter came they had another try, but ended by coming back
to my side.’[220] Whatever the nature of the assistance might be,
Darwin was always profoundly grateful for it, and his children speak
particularly of the simple, humble fashion in which his gratitude
was expressed. It was a pleasure to help him in any way, because you
were sure that the help would be used as you meant it and would be
thoroughly appreciated.
And in general I do not know that the beauty of Darwin’s relation
to his children can be better expressed than in the words of his
son, equally honorable to son and to father: ‘I do not think his
exaggerated sense of our good qualities, intellectual or moral,
made us conceited, as might perhaps have been expected, but rather
more humble and grateful to him. The reason being no doubt that the
influence of his character, of his sincerity and greatness of nature,
had a much deeper and more lasting effect than any small exaltation
which his praises or admiration may have caused to our vanity.’[221]
IV
Though Darwin’s social activity was necessarily restricted by his
ill-health, his devotion to special friends was as sweet and notable
as his devotion to his family. Indeed, friendship, the natural
turning to sympathetic spirits, and clinging to them with constant
loyalty, seems to have been a peculiarly profound and powerful
instinct in him. He took a deep interest in all his friends’ affairs,
and poured out all his own interests to them with intimate and
appealing effusiveness. In writing of his grandfather, he says:
‘There is, perhaps, no safer test of a man’s real character than
that of his long continued friendship with good and able men.’[222]
Assuredly, if the test is applied to himself, he bears it nobly.
Of his longing for friendship and great aptness for it in boyhood he
speaks very positively: ‘I had many friends amongst the schoolboys,
whom I loved dearly, and I think that my disposition was then very
affectionate.’[223] His son says that the friendships of mature life
had not quite the zest and passion of those of youth; but the son
adds with justice that no one who reads his father’s letters can feel
that his later affections were lacking in intensity or depth.[224]
There can be no doubt that Darwin’s influence over his friends was
very great, probably all the more so because he was so unassertive
and disinclined to interfere or to dictate. Sir John Lubbock is
said to have ‘owed to the great Charles Darwin even a larger debt
in the respect of character formation than in the encouragement
and direction of his mental gifts.’[225] Darwin did not hesitate to
advise urgently and warmly, where he felt that advice was needed. For
example, he writes to Hooker about his health: ‘Take warning by me,
and do not work too hard. For God’s sake, think of this.’[226] He did
not hesitate to differ, or to question, or to argue, when he thought
his friends were wrong, and he could set them right.
At the same time, owing to his humility and natural self-effacement,
the chief impression one gets from the intimate personal
correspondence is that of turning to friends for counsel,
encouragement, and support. Not that he was not amply able and ready
to stand on his own feet; but to develop his views and arguments
to others seemed to clarify them and to give them added force and
significance for himself: ‘I will write no more, which is a great
virtue in me; for it is to me a very great pleasure telling you
everything I do.’[227] Honor, commendation, appreciation, when they
came from the public, were all very well; but their value and their
charm were doubled when they came from those one loved. Thus, he
writes in regard to a letter of Hooker, congratulating him on the
receipt of a medal: ‘I then opened yours, and such is the effect
of warmth, friendship, and kindness from one that is loved, that
the very same fact, told as you told it, made me glow with pleasure
till my very heart throbbed.’[228] I have already alluded to his
expressions of gratitude and appreciation for all the support and
assistance that his friends gave him; but the expression is so
tender, and so constant, and so thoroughly characteristic, that it
cannot be too much insisted upon.
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]
But the merely material relation of support and assistance was a
small affair compared to the profound affection which Darwin seemed
peculiarly calculated to convey and inspire. The note of this
affection sounds through all his correspondence and gives it a more
winning quality than almost anything else. How deep and strong was
his friends’ regard for him is nicely indicated in the passage in
which Huxley analyzes the bearing of it upon his work and success: ‘I
cannot agree with you, again, that the acceptance of Darwin’s views
was in any way influenced by the strong affection entertained for him
by many of his friends. What the affection really did was to lead
those of his friends who had seen good reason for his views to take
much more trouble in his defense and support and to strike out much
harder at his adversary than they would otherwise have done. This is
pardonable, if not justifiable—that which you suggest would to my
mind be neither.’[232]
As for Darwin’s own feeling, I know nothing that brings it home
more vividly, when one considers his zeal for his work and for
success with it, than the passage in which he declares such success
and everything else to be trash beside love: “Talk of fame, honor,
pleasure, wealth, all are dirt compared with affection; and this
is a doctrine which, I know, from your letter, that you will agree
with from the bottom of your heart.’[233] After which I think we may
conclude generally that few human beings have been more endowed than
Charles Darwin with tenderness and sympathy for all created things.’