ch. iv.] REMINISCENCES. 97 



the numbers. The feeling that he ought to know people, 

 and the difficulty he had in remembering faces in his latter 

 years, also added to his discomfort on such occasions. He 

 did not realise that he would be recognised from his photo- 

 graphs, and I remember his being uneasy at being obviously 

 recognised by a stranger at the Crystal Palace Aquarium. 



I must say something of his manner of working; a 

 striking characteristic was his respect for time; he never 

 forgot 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 minutes was the way to 

 get work done ; he showed this 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 spare min- 

 utes from thinking that it was not worth while to set to 

 work. I was often struck by his way of working up to the 

 very limit of his strength, so that he suddenly stopped in 

 dictating, with the words, " I believe I mustn't do any 

 more." The same eager desire not to lose time was seen in 

 his quick movements when at work. I particularly remember 

 noticing this when he was making an experiment on the roots 

 of beans, which required some care in manipulation ; fasten- 

 ing the little bits of card upon the roots was done carefully 

 and necessarily slowly, but the intermediate movements 

 were all quick ; taking a fresh bean, seeing that the root 

 was healthy, impaling it on a pin, fixing it on a cork, and 

 seeing that it was vertical, &c. ; all these processes were per- 

 formed with a kind of restrained eagerness. He gave one 

 the impression of working with pleasure, and not with any 

 drag. I have an image, too, of him as he recorded the 

 result of some experiment, looking eagerly at each root, &c, 

 and then writing with equal eagerness. I remember the 

 quick movement of his head up and down as he looked 

 from the object to the notes. 



He saved a great deal of time through not having to do 

 things twice. Although he would patiently go on repeat- 

 ing experiments where there was any good to be gained, he 

 could not endure having to repeat an experiment which 

 ought, if complete care had been taken, to have told its story 

 at first and this gave him a continual anxiety that the ex- 

 periment should not be wasted ; he felt the experiment to 

 be sacred, however slight a one it was. He wished to learn as 

 much as possible from an experiment, so that he did not con- 



