294 OBITUARY X 



every particle of available energy could not have 

 enabled him to achieve a fraction of the vast 

 amount of labour he got through, in the course of 

 the following forty years, had not the wisest and the 

 most loving care unceasingly surrounded him from 

 the time of his marriage in 1839. As early as 

 1842, the failure of health was so marked 

 that removal from London became imperatively 

 necessary ; and Darwin purchased a house and 

 grounds at Down, a solitary hamlet in Kent, which 

 was his home for the rest of his life. Under the 

 strictly regulated conditions of a valetudinarian 

 existence, the intellectual activity of the invalid 

 might have put to shame most healthy men ; and, 

 so long as he could hold his head up, there was no 

 limit to the genial kindness of thought and action 

 for all about him. Those friends who were 

 privileged to share the intimate life of the house- 

 hold at Down have an abiding memory of the 

 cheerful restfulness which pervaded and character- 

 ised it. 



After mentioning his settlement at Down, 

 Darwin writes in his Autobiography : 



" My chief enjoyment and sole employment 

 throughout life has been scientific work ; and the 

 excitement from such work makes me, for the time, 

 forget, or drives quite away, my daily discomfort. 

 I have, therefore, nothing to record during the rest 

 of my life, except the publication of my several 

 books." (I, p. 79.) 



