ch. il] EARTHWORMS. 53 



this difficulty has caused me a very great loss of time ; but it 

 has had the compensating advantage of forcing me to think 

 long and intently about every sentence, and thus I have 

 been led to see errors in reasoning and in my own observa- 

 tions or those of others. 



There seems to be a sort of fatality in my mind leading 

 me to put at first my statement or proposition in a wrong 

 or awkward form. Formerly I used to think about my 

 sentences before writing them down ; but for several years 

 I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand, 

 whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the 

 words ; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scib- 

 bled down are often better ones than I could have written 

 deliberately. 



Having said thus much about my manner of writing, I 

 will add that with my large books I sjDend a good deal of time 

 over the general arrangement of the matter. I first make 

 the rudest outline in two or three pages, and then a larger 

 one in several pages, a few words or one word standing for 

 a whole discussion or series of facts. Each one of these 

 headings is again enlarged and often transferred before I 

 begin to write in extenso. As in several of my books facts 

 observed by others have been very extensively used, and as 

 I have always had several quite distinct subjects in hand at 

 the same time, I may mention that I keep from thirty to 

 forty large portfolios, in cabinets with labelled shelves, into 

 which I can at once put a detached reference or memo- 

 randum. I have bought many books, and at their ends I 

 make an index of all the facts that concern my work ; or, if 

 the book is not my own, write out a separate abstract, and 

 of such abstracts I have a large drawer full. Before begin- 

 ning on any subject I look to all the short indexes and make 

 a general and classified index, and by taking the one or 

 more proper portfolios I have all the information collected 

 during my life ready for use. 



I have said that in one respect my mind has changed 

 during the last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of 

 thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works 

 of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, 

 gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took in- 

 tense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. 

 I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, 

 and music very great delight. But now for many years I 

 cannot endure to read a line of poetry ; I have tried lately to 



