18091842] EDINBURGH 5 



to me like three months. I remember a certain shady 

 green road (where I saw a snake) and a waterfall, with a 

 degree of pleasure, which must be connected with the pleasure 

 from scenery, though not directly recognised as such. The 

 sandy plain before the house has left a strong impression, 

 which is obscurely connected with an indistinct remembrance 

 of curious insects, probably a Cimex mottled with red, and 

 Zygczna, the burnet-moth. I was at that time very pas- 

 sionate (when I swore like a trooper) and quarrelsome. The 

 former passion has I think nearly wholly but slowly died 

 away. When journeying there by stage coach I remember 

 a recruiting officer (I think I should know his face to this 

 day) at tea time, asking the maid-servant for toasted bread 

 and butter. I was convulsed with laughter and thought it 

 the quaintest and wittiest speech that ever passed from the 

 mouth of man. Such is wit at loj years old. The memory 

 now flashes across me of the pleasure I had in the evening on 

 a blowy day walking along the beach by myself and seeing 

 the gulls and cormorants wending their way home in a wild 

 and irregular course. Such poetic pleasures, felt so keenly 

 in after years, I should not have expected so early in life. 



1820, July. Went a riding tour (on old Dobbin) with 

 Erasmus to Pistyll Rhiadr : ; of this I recollect little, an 

 indistinct picture of the fall, but I well remember my 

 astonishment on hearing that fishes could jump up it. 



The autobiographical fragment here comes to an end. The next 

 letters give some account of Darwin as an Edinburgh student. He has 

 described (Life and Letters, I., pp. 35-45) his failure to be interested in 

 the official teaching of the University, his horror at the operating theatre, 

 and his gradually increasing dislike of medical study, which finally 

 determined his leaving Edinburgh, and entering Cambridge with a view 

 to taking Orders. 



To R. W. Darwin. Letter i 



Sunday Morning [Edinburgh, October, 1825]. 



MY DEAR FATHER 



As I suppose Erasmus 2 has given all the particulars 

 of the journey, I will say no more about it, except that 

 altogether it has cost me 7 pounds. We got into our 



1 Pistyll Rhiadr proceeds from Llyn Pen Rhiadr down the Llyfnant 

 to the Dovey. 



* Erasmus Alvey Darwin (1804-81), elder brother of Charles Darwin. 



