172 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xn 



blessing it is to have one whom one can always trust, one 

 always the same, always ready to give comfort, sympathy 

 and the best advice. God bless you, my dear, you are too 

 good for me. Yesterday I was poorly: the Review and 

 confounded Queen was too much for me; but I got bettel 

 in the evening and am very well to-day. I cannot walk far 

 yet ; but I loiter for hours in the Park and amuse myself by 

 watching the ants : I have great hopes I have found the rare 

 slave-making species, and have sent a specimen to the 

 British Museum to know whether it is so. I have got some 

 more letters to write, though I wrote six longish ones yester- 

 day. So farewell my best and dearest of wives. 



0. I). 



During these years we had more than one governess. 

 Our education, as far as book learning was concerned, was 

 not of an advanced type ; my mother apparently did not try 

 to get the best possible teaching for us. But from our 

 different governesses we learnt nothing that was not good 

 and high-minded ; from all we received real affection, and in 

 more than one instance devoted care in illness. A sentence 

 in a letter of hers to her son Leonard when a schoolboy, 

 illustrates her point of view. She wrote of a governess who 

 had just taken a situation, " I can never be thankful enough 



that Mrs does not know a word of French or German, 



so that the poor little woman's shortcomings will not be 

 perceived I trust." Her indifference as to education con- 

 tinued. In 1888 she wrote: " Now I must write and decline 

 subscribing to the Shaen memorial at Bedford College, but 

 the fact is that I do not care about the higher education of 

 women, though I ought to do so." 



In 1859 the Origin of Species was published, and my 

 father got terribly overdone with getting it through the 

 press. My mother helped him with correcting the proof- 

 sheets. When the book was finally off his hands he went 

 to the water-cure establishment at Hkley and we followed 

 on Oct. 17th. It was bitterly cold, he was extremely ill and 

 suffering, the lodgings were uncomfortable, and I look back 

 upon it as a time of frozen misery. There was much excite- 

 ment over the letters which he received on its publication, 

 but I remember my mother would not show me Professor 

 Sedgwick's horrified reprobation of it. 1 



1 The letter is published in Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. 



