Volume I Part 8 (2/2)

”In all parish matters he was an active assistant; in matters connected with the schools, charities, and other business, his liberal contribution was ever ready, and in the differences which at times occurred in that, as in other parishes, I was always sure of his support He held that where there was really no iiven to the clergyht to know the circumstances best, and was chiefly responsible”

His intercourse with strangers was marked with scrupulous and rather formal politeness, but in fact he had few opportunities of ers

Dr Lane has described (Lecture by Dr BW Richardson, in St George's Hall, October 22, 1882) how, on the rare occasion ofa lecture (Dr Sanderson's) at the Royal Institution, ”the whole assemblyrose to their feet to welcome him,” while he seemed ”scarcely conscious that such an outburst of applause could possibly be intended for himself” The quiet life he led at Down e society; for instance, at the Royal Society's soirees he felt oppressed by the nuht to know people, and the difficulty he had in re faces in his latter years, also added to his discomfort on such occasions He did not realise that he would be recognised fro obviously recognised by a stranger at the Crystal Palace Aquariu: one characteristic of it was his respect for tiot how precious it was This was shown, for instance, in the way in which he tried to curtail his holidays; also, and more clearly, with respect to shorter periods He would often say, that saving the et work done; he showed his love of saving the minutes in the difference he felt between a quarter of an hour and ten minutes' work; he never wasted a few sparethat it was not worth while to set to work I was often struck by his way of working up to the very li, with the words, ”I believe I er desire not to lose time was seen in his quickthis when he wasan experiment on the roots of beans, which required so the little bits of card upon the roots was done carefully and necessarily slowly, but the inter that the root was healthy, i that it was vertical, etc; all these processes were perforave one the i I have an ie, too, of hierly at each root, etc, and then writing with equal eagerness I remember the quick movement of his head up and down as he looked froreat deal of tih he would patiently go on repeating experiained, he could not endure having to repeat an experiht, if complete care had been taken, to have succeeded the first tiave him a continual anxiety that the experiment should not be wasted; he felt the experiht a one it was He wished to learn as much as possible from an experile point to which the experi a nus onderful I do not think he cared for preliuides and to be repeated Any experiment done was to be of soed the necessity of keeping the notes of experiments which failed, and to this rule he always adhered

In the literary part of his work he had the sa ti at the ed unnecessarily to read anything a second time

His natural tendency was to use simple methods and few instruments The use of the compound microscope has much increased since his youth, and this at the expense of the simple one It strikes us nowadays as extraordinary that he should have had no coe; but in this he followed the advice of Robt

Broas an authority in suchfor the simple lected, and that one ought always to see asto the compound microscope In one of his letters he speaks on this point, and remarks that he always suspects the work of atable was a thick board, let into aof the study; it was lower than an ordinary table, so that he could not have worked at it standing; but this, froth, he would not have done in any case He sat at his dissecting-table on a curious low stool which had belonged to his father, with a seat revolving on a vertical spindle, and e castors, so that he could turn easily fro about on the table, but besides these a number of odds and ends were kept in a round table full of radiating drawers, and turning on a vertical axis, which stood close by his left side, as he sat at his microscope-table

The draere labelled, ”best tools,” ”rough tools,” ”specimens,”

”preparations for specimens,” etc The most marked peculiarity of the contents of these draas the care hich little scraps and als were preserved; he held the well-known belief, that if you threw a thing away you were sure to want it directly--and so things accu on the table, he would have been struck by an air of siht hand were shelves, with a nulasses, saucers, tin biscuit boxes for ger seeds, zinc labels, saucers full of sand, etc, etc Considering how tidy and s, it is curious that he bore with soa box made of a desired shape, and stained black inside, he would hunt up soet it darkened inside with shoe-blacking; he did not care to have glass covers erular shape, with perhaps a narrow angle sticking uselessly out on one side But sowas of a simple kind, that he had no need for any elaboration, and I think his habit in this respect was in great th, and not waste it on inessential things

His way ofobjects uish, such as leaves, flowers, etc, he tied threads of different colours round them In particular he used this uish; thus in the case of crossed and self-fertilised flowers, one set would be marked with black and one hite thread, tied round the stalk of the flower I reathered and waiting to be weighed, counted, etc, with pieces of black and of white thread to distinguish the trays in which they lay When he had to cos, sowed in the same pot, he separated theave the necessary details about the experiment, was always placed on a certain side, so that it beca the label which were the ”crossed” and which were the ”self-fertilised”

His love of each particular experier zeal not to lose the fruit of it, ca experiments--in the elaborate care he took not totrays, etc, etc I can recall his appearance as he counted seeds under the si suchI think he personified each seed as a s heap, or juave to the work the excitereat faith in instruments, and I do not think it naturally occurred to hilass, etc He was astonished e found that one of his reat accuracy in ood scales; he had an old three-foot rule, which was the co borrowed, because it was the only one which was certain to be in its place--unless, indeed, the last borrower had forgotten to put it back For raduated by the village carpenter Latterly he took to using paper scales graduated to millimeters For small objects he used a pair of compasses and an ivory protractor It was characteristic of hiexample of his faith in authority is that he took his ”inch in terms of millimeters”

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He had a chemical balance which dated from the days when he worked at chemistry with his brother Erasmus Measurelass: I reraduation With this, too, I re the fluid-line on to the graduation I do not mean by this account of his instruments that any of his experiive them as examples of his simple methods and faith in others--faith at least in instrument-makers, whose whole trade was a mystery to hi especially on his , occur to me There was one quality of e in leading hi exceptions pass unnoticed Everybody notices a fact as an exception when it is striking or frequent, but he had a special instinct for arresting an exception A point apparently slight and unconnected with his present work is passed over by many a man almost unconsciously with some half-considered explanation, which is in fact no explanation It was just these things that he seized on tospecial in this procedure,made by means of it I only mention it because, as I watched him at work, the value of this power to an experily impressed upon me

Another quality which was shown in his experi to a subject; he used al that he could not bear to be beaten, as if this were rather a sign of weakness on his part He often quoted the saying, ”It's dogged as does it;” and I think doggedness expresses his frame of mind almost better than perseverance Perseverance seems hardly to express his almost fierce desire to force the truth to reveal itself He often said that it was iive up an inquiry And I think it was his tendency to pass this point that inclined hiedness to his work

He often said that no one could be a good observer unless he was an active theoriser This bringsexceptions: it was as though he were charged with theorising power ready to flow into any channel on the slightest disturbance, so that no fact, however s a streanified into importance In this way it naturally happened that many untenable theories occurred to hiination was equalled by his power of judging and condehts that occurred to him He was just to his theories, and did not conde to test ould see These rather wild trials he called ”fool's experiments,” and enjoyed extre the cotyledons of Biophytuhly sensitive to vibrations of the table, he fancied that they ht perceive the vibrations of sound, and therefore made me play my bassoon close to a plant (This is not sofrom a small cause, but only of his wish to test the most improbable ideas)

The love of experi in him, and I can remember the way he would say, ”I shan't be easy till I have tried it,” as if an outside force were driving hi , and when he was engaged on one of his books which required argu of facts, he felt experi upon the 'Variations of Animals and Plants,' in 1860-61, he ht hi to think that so important a piece of research should have been undertaken and largely worked out as a pastime in place of more serious work The letters to Hooker of this period contain expressions such as, ”God forgiveso idle; I am quite sillily interested in this work” The intense pleasure he took in understanding the adaptations for fertilisation is strongly shown in these letters He speaks in one of his letters of his intention of working at Drosera as a rest from the 'Descent of Man' He has described in his 'Recollections' the strong satisfaction he felt in solving the problem of heterostylisy of South A else It was perhaps this delight in work requiring keen observation thatpowers almost more than appreciation of his other qualities

For books he had no respect, but merely considered them as tools to be worked with Thus he did not bind them, and even when a paper book fell to pieces fro,' he preserved it fro a metal clip over its back

In the same way he would cut a heavy book in half, to make it more convenient to hold He used to boast that he made Lyell publish the second edition of one of his books in two volued to cut it in half Pamphlets were often treated even more severely than books, for he would tear out, for the sake of saving rooes except the one that interested him The consequence of all this was, that his library was not orna collection of books

He wasbooks and pa on his oork He had one shelf on which were piled up the books he had not yet read, and another to which they were transferred after having been read, and before being catalogued He would often groan over his unread books, because there were so many which he knew he should never read Many a book was at once transferred to the other heap, either marked with a cypher at the end, to show that it contained no es, or inscribed, perhaps, ”not read,” or ”only skimmed”

The books accumulated in the ”read” heap until the shelves overflowed, and then, withHe disliked this work, and as the necessity of undertaking the work became imperative, would often say, in a voice of despair, ”We really must do these books soon”

In each book, as he read it, hea book or pae, often adding short rees ued and put away, the h abstract of the book was made

This abstract would perhaps be written under three or four headings on different sheets, the facts being sorted out and added to the previously collected facts in different subjects He had other sets of abstracts arranged, not according to subject, but according to periodical When collecting facts on a large scale, in earlier years, he used to read through, and make abstracts, in this way, of whole series of periodicals

In so several note-books with facts for his book on species; but it was certainly early that he adopted his plan of using portfolios as described in the 'Recollections' (The racks on which the portfolios were placed are shown in the illustration, ”The Study at Down,” in the recess at the right-hand side of the fire-place) My father and M de Candolle were mutually pleased to discover that they had adopted the sa facts De Candolle describes the ie,'

and in his sketch ofit in action at Down