WORK. 



127 



undertaken and largely worked out as a pastime in place of 

 more serious work. The letters to Hooker of this period con- : 

 tain expressions such as, *' God forgive me for being so idle ; 

 I am quite sillily interested in this work." The intense pleas- ; 

 ure he took in understanding the adaptations for fertilisation 

 is strongly shown in these letters. He speaks in one of his 

 letters of his intention of working at Drosera as a rest from 

 the ' Descent of Man.' He has described in his ' Recollec- 

 tions ' the strong satisfaction he felt in solving the problem of 

 heterostylism. And I have heard him mention that the Geol- ^ 

 ogy of South America gave him almost more pleasure than 

 anything else. It was perhaps this delight in work requiring 

 keen observation that made him value praise given to his 

 observing powers almost more than appreciation of his other 

 qualities. 



For books he had no respect, but merely considered them 

 as tools to be worked with. Thus he did not bind them, and 

 even when a paper book fell to pieces from use, as happened 

 to Miiller's ' Befruchtung,' he preserved it from complete dis- 

 solution by putting a metal clip over its back. In the same 

 way he would cut a heavy book in half, to make it more con- 

 venient to hold. He used to boast that he made Lyell pub- 

 lish the second edition of one of his books in two volumes in- 

 stead of in one, by telling him how he had been obliged to 

 cut it in half. Pamphlets were often treated even more severe- 

 ly than books, for he would tear out, for the sake of saving 

 room, all the pages except the one that interested him. The 

 consequence of all this was, that his library was not orna- 

 mental, but was striking from being so evidently a working 

 collection of books. 



He was methodical in his manner of reading books and 

 pamphlets bearing on his own work. He had one shelf on 

 which were piled up the books he had not yet read, and an- 

 other to which they were transferred after having been read, 

 and before being catalogued. He would often groan over his 

 unread books, because there were so many which he knew he 

 should never read. Many a book was at once transferred to 



