CHAPTER III. 



REMINISCENCES OF MY FATHER'S EVERYDAY LIFE. 



It is my wish in the present chapter to give some idea of 

 my father's everyday life. It has seemed to me that I might 

 carry out this object in the form of a rough sketch of a day's 

 life at Down, interspersed with such recollections as are called 

 up by the record. Many of these recollections, which have a 

 meaning for those who knew my father, will seem colourless 

 or trifling to strangers. Nevertheless, I give them in the hope 

 that they may help to preserve that impression of his personal- 

 ity which remains on the minds of those who knew and loved 

 him — an impression at once so vivid and so untranslatable 

 into words. 



Of his personal appearance (in these days of multiplied 

 photographs) it is hardly necessary to say much. He was 

 about six feet in height, but scarcely looked so tall, as he 

 stooped a good deal ; in later days he yielded to the stoop ; 

 but I can remember seeing him long ago swinging his arms 

 back to open out his chest, and holding himself upright with 

 a jerk. He gave one the idea that he had been active rather 

 than strong ; his shoulders were not broad for his height, 

 though certainly not narrow. As a young man he must have 

 had much endurance, for on one of the shore excursions from 

 the Beagle^ when all were suffering from want of water, he was 

 one of the two who were better able than the rest to struggle 

 on in search of it. As a boy he was active, and could jump 

 a bar placed at the height of the "Adam's apple" in his 

 neck. 



