RIDING. 



95 



the drawing-room. I think he sometimes fused together his 

 admiration of the structure of a flower and of its intrinsic 

 beauty ; for instance, in the case of the big pendulous pink 

 and white flowers of Dielytra. In the same way he had an 

 affection, half-artistic, half-botanical, for the little blue Lo- 

 belia. In admiring flowers, he would often laugh at the dingy 

 high-art colours, and contrast them with the bright tints of 

 nature. I used to like to hear him admire the beauty of a 

 flower; it was a kind of gratitude to the flower itself, and a 

 personal love for its delicate form and colour. I seem to 

 remember him gently touching a flower he delighted in ; it 

 was the same simple admiration that a child might have. 



He could not help personifying natural things. This feel- 

 ing came out in abuse as well as in praise — e.g. of some seed- 

 lings — " The little beggars are doing just what I don't want 

 them to." He would speak in a half-provoked, half-admiring 

 way of the ingenuity of a Mimosa leaf in screwing itself out 

 of a basin of water in which he had tried to fix it. One 

 might see the same spirit in his way of speaking of Sundew, 

 earth-worms, &c.* 



Within my memory, his only outdoor recreation, besides 

 walking, was riding, which he took to on the recommendation 

 of Dr. Bence Jones, and we had the luck to find for him the 

 easiest and quietest cob in the world, named *' Tommy." He 

 enjoyed these rides extremely, and devised a number of short 

 rounds which brought him home in time for lunch. Our 

 country is good for this purpose, owing to the number of 

 small valleys which give a variety to what in a flat country 

 would be a dull loop of road. He was not, I think, naturally 

 fond of horses, nor had he a high opinion of their intelli- 

 gence, and Tommy was often laughed at for the alarm he 

 showed at passing and repassing the same heap of hedge- 



* Cf. Leslie Stephen's * Swift,' 1882, p. 200, where Swift's inspection of 

 the manners and customs of servants are compared to my father's observa- 

 tions on worms, " The difference is,'" says Mr. Stephen, " that Darwin had 

 none but kindly feelings for worms." 



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