I30 



REMINISCENCES. 



Norman, was once more corrected, and then sent off to the 

 printers. Then came the work of revising and correcting the 

 proofs, which my father found especially wearisome. 



It was at this stage that he first seriously considered the 

 style of what he had written. When this was going on he 

 usually started some other piece of work as a relief. The 

 correction of slips consisted in fact of two processes, for the 

 correction were first written in pencil, and then re-considered 

 and written in ink. 



When the book was passing through the " slip " stage he 

 was glad to have corrections and suggestions from others. 

 Thus my mother looked over the proofs of the 'Origin.' In 

 some of the later works my sister, Mrs. Litchfied, did much 

 of the correction. After my sister's marriage perhaps most 

 of the work fell to my share. 



My sister, Mrs. Litchfield, writes : — 



" This work was very interesting in itself, and it was inex- 

 pressibly exhilarating to work for him. He was always so 

 ready to be convinced that any suggested alteration was an 

 improvement, and so full of gratitude for the trouble taken. 

 I do not think that he ever used to forget to tell me what im- 

 provement he thought that I had made, and he used almost 

 to excuse himself if he did not agree with any correction. I 

 think I felt the singular modesty and graciousness of his 

 nature through thus working for him in a way I never should 

 otherwise have done. 



" He did not write with ease, and was apt to invert his 

 sentences both in writing and speaking, putting the qualifying 

 clause before it was clear what it was to qualify. He corrected 

 a great deal, and was eager to express himself as well as he 

 possibly could." 



Perhaps the commonest corrections needed were of obscu- 

 rities due to the omission of a necessary link in the reasoning, 

 something which he had evidently omitted through familiarity 

 with the subject. Not that there was any fault in the sequence 



