Volume I Part 9 (1/2)

Besides these portfolios, of which there are soe bundles of MS marked ”used” and put away He felt the value of his notes, and had a horror of their destruction by fire I revery earnestly, that the rest of his life would be miserable if his notes and books were to be destroyed

He shows the sa about the loss of a , ”I have a copy, or the loss would have killeda book he would spenda skeleton or plan of the whole, and in enlarging and sub-classing each heading, as described in his 'Recollections' I think this careful arrange up of his arguement of his facts In his 'Life of Erasrowth of the book froement was altered afterwards, because it was too forrandfather rather by means of a list of qualities than as a complete picture

It was only within the last few years that he adopted a plan of writing which he was convinced suited him best, and which is described in the 'Recollections;' nahtest attention to style It was characteristic of him that he felt unable to write with sufficient want of care if he used his best paper, and thus it was that he wrote on the backs of old proofs or h copy was then reconsidered, and a fair copy was made For this purpose he had foolscap paper ruled at wide intervals, the lines being needed to prevent hi so closely that correction became difficult The fair copy was then corrected, and was recopied before being sent to the printers The copying was done by Mr E Nore schoolmaster at Down My father beca, that he could not correct manuscript, even when clearly written out by one of his children, until it had been recopied by Mr Nor from Mr Norman was once more corrected, and then sent off to the printers Then ca the proofs, which my father found especially wearisoe that he first seriously considered the style of what he had written When this was going on he usually started some other piece of work as a relief The correction of slips consisted in fact of two processes, for the corrections were first written in pencil, and then re-considered and written in ink

When the book was passing through the ”slip” stage he was glad to have corrections and suggestions froin' In some of the later works my sister, Mrs

Litchfield, did e perhaps most of the work fell to my share

My sister, Mrs Litchfield, writes:--

”This as very interesting in itself, and it was inexpressibly exhilarating to work for hiested alteration was an iratitude for the trouble taken I do not think that he ever used to forget to tell ht that I had ree with any correction I think I felt the singularfor him in a way I never should otherwise have done

”He did not write with ease, and was apt to invert his sentences both in writing and speaking, putting the qualifying clause before it was clear what it was to qualify He corrected a great deal, and was eager to express himself as well as he possibly could”

Perhaps the commonest corrections needed were of obscurities due to the o which he had evidently oh familiarity with the subject Not that there was any fault in the sequence of the thoughts, but that froument he did not notice when the words failed to reproduce his thought He also frequently put too much matter into one sentence, so that it had to be cut up into two

On the whole, I think the pains which my father took over the literary part of the as very reru English, saying, for instance, that if a bad arrangement of a sentence was possible, he should be sure to adopt it He once got much amusement and satisfaction out of the difficulty which one of the fa a short circular He had the pleasure of correcting and laughing at obscurities, involved sentences, and other defects, and thus took his revenge for all the criticism he had himself to bear with He used to quote with astonishht off and send the MS to the printer without correction But in some cases he acted in a soot hopelessly involved, he would ask himself, ”nohat DO you want to say?” and his ansritten doould often disentangle the confusion

His style has been e has reood style It is, above all things, direct and clear; and it is characteristic of hi on naivete, and in its absence of pretence He had the strongest disbelief in the colish; indeed, he thought that the contrary was the case

In writing, he so expressions as he did in conversation Thus in the 'Origin,' page 440, there is a description of a larval cirripede, ”with six pairs of beautifully constructed natatory legs, a pair of nificent coh at him for this sentence, which we coive hiht, without fear of being ludicrous, appears elsewhere in his writings

His courteous and conciliatory tone towards his reader is remarkable, and it must be partly this quality which revealed his personal sweetness of character to so many who had never seen him I have always felt it to be a curious fact, that he who had altered the face of Biological Science, and is in this respect the chief of the moderns, should have written and worked in so essentially a non- his books one is reminded of the older naturalists rather than of the modern school of writers He was a Naturalist in the old sense of the word, that is, a man orks at many branches of the science, not h he founded whole new divisions of special subjects--such as the fertilisation of flowers, insectivorous plants, di these very subjects he does not strike the reader as a specialist The reader feels like a friend who is being talked to by a courteous gentle lectured by a professor The tone of such a book as the 'Origin' is char, and almost pathetic; it is the tone of a man who, convinced of the truth of his own views, hardly expects to convince others; it is just the reverse of the style of a fanatic, ants to force people to believe The reader is never scorned for any ained to feel, and his scepticism is treated with patient respect A sceptical reader, or perhaps even an unreasonable reader, seehts It was in consequence of this feeling, perhaps, that he took ined would strike the reader, or save him trouble, and so tempt him to read

For the same reason he took much interest in the illustrations of his books, and I think rated rather too highly their value The illustrations for his earlier books were drawn by professional artists

This was the case in 'Animals and Plants,' the 'Descent of Man,' and the 'Expression of the E Plants,'

'Insectivorous Plants,' the 'Movee extent, illustrated by so drawn by far the htful to draw for him, as he was enthusiastic in his praise of veryhters-in-law, and hoould finish his words of praise by saying, ”Tell A--, Michael Angelo is nothing to it” Though he praised so generously, he always looked closely at the drawing, and easily detected thy, and seems to have been really much annoyed and distressed when he found how the 'Variations of Ani under his hands I re with 'Tristram Shandy's' words, ”Let no man say, 'Come, I'll write a duodecimo'”

His consideration for other authors was as marked a characteristic as his tone towards his reader He speaks of all other authors as persons deserving of respect In cases where, as in the case of --'s experihtly of the author, he speaks of him in such a way that no one would suspect it In other cases he treats the confused writings of ignorant persons as though the fault lay with hi theeneral tone of respect, he had a pleasant way of expressing his opinion on the value of a quoted work, or his obligation for a piece of private infor was not onlyhim ready to consider the ideas and observations of all ise for this, and would say that he was at first inclined to rate everything too highly

It was a greata respectful feeling towards what he read, he had the keenest of instincts as to whether a man was trustworthy or not He seemed to form a very definite opinion as to the accuracy of the uained the i of a man's trustworthiness to be ofof the sense of honour that ought to reign a authors, and had a horror of any kind of laxness in quoting He had a contelory, and in his letters often blames himself for the pleasure he took in the success of his books, as though he were departing from his ideal--a love of truth and carelessness about fa to Sir J Hooker what he calls a boasting letter, he laughs at himself for his conceit and want ofletter which he wrote toto her, in case of his death, the care of publishi+ng the manuscript of his first essay on evolution This letter seems to me full of the intense desire that his theory should succeed as a contribution to knowledge, and apart from any desire for personal fame He certainly had the healthy desire for success which a ht to have But at the tiin' it is evident that he was overwhelly satisfied with the adherence of such men as Lyell, Hooker, Huxley, and Asa Gray, and did not dreaeneral fame as he attained to

Connected with his conte dislike of all questions of priority The letters to Lyell, at the tier he felt with hi of disappoint of all his years of work His sense of literary honour co about priority is again shown in the admiration expressed in his 'Recollections' of Mr Wallace's self-annihilation

His feeling about recla answers to attacks and all kinds of discussions, was strong It is simply expressed in a letter to Falconer (1863?), ”If I ever felt angry towards you, for whoin to suspect that I was a little mad I was very sorry about your reclamation, as I think it is in every case a mistake and should be left to others Whether I should so act myself under provocation is a different question” It was a feeling partly dictated by instinctive delicacy, and partly by a strong sense of the waste of tiy, and temper thus caused He said that he owed his deteret into discussions (He departed from his rule in his ”Note on the Habits of the Pampas Woodpecker, Colaptes cae 705: also in a letter published in the 'Athenaeuretted that he had not remained silent His replies to criticisin,' can hardly be classed as infractions of his rule) to the advice of Lyell,--advice which he transiven to paper warfare

If the character oflife is to be understood, the conditions of ill-health, under which he worked, must be constantly borne inpatience, that even his children can hardly, I believe, realise the extent of his habitual suffering In their case the difficulty is heightened by the fact that, from the days of their earliest recollections, they saw him in constant ill-health,--and saw him, in spite of it, full of pleasure in what pleased them Thus, in later life, their perception of what he endured had to be disentangled froenial kindness under conditions of unrecognised difficulty