132 



REMINISCENCES. 



I 



His courteous and conciliatory tone towards his reader is 

 remarkable, and it must be partly this quality which revealed 

 his personal sweetness of character to so many who had 

 never seen him. I have always felt it to be a curious fact, 

 hthat he who had altered the face of Biological Science, 

 and is in this respect the chief of the moderns, should 

 have written and worked in so essentially a non-modern spirit 

 ^ and manner. In reading his books one is reminded of the 

 older naturalists rather than of the modern school of writers. 

 He was a Naturalist in the old sense of the word, that is, a 

 man who works at many branches of the science, not merely 

 a specialist in one. Thus it is, that, though he founded whole 

 \ I new divisions of special subjects — such as the fertilisation of 

 f 1 flowers, insectivorous plants, dimorphism, &c. — yet even in 

 treating these very subjects he does not strike the reader as a 

 specialist. The reader feels like a friend who is being talked 

 \ to by a courteous gentleman, not like a pupil being lectured 

 by a professor. The tone of such a book as the ' Origin ' is 

 charming, and almost pathetic ; it is the tone of a man who, 

 convinced of the truth of his own views, hardly expects to 

 convince others ; it is just the reverse of the style of a fanatic, 

 who wants to force people to believe. The reader is never 

 scorned for any amount of doubt which he rnay be imagined 

 to feel, and his scepticism is treated with patient respect. A 

 sceptical reader, or perhaps even an unreasonable reader, 

 seems to have been generally present to his thoughts. It was 

 in consequence of this feeling, perhaps, that he took much 

 trouble over points which he imagined would strike the reader, 

 or save him trouble, and so tempt him to read. 



For the same reason he took much interest in the illustra- 

 tions of his books, and I think rated rather too highly their 

 value. The illustrations for his earlier books were drawn by 

 professional artists. This was the case in 'Animals and 

 Plants,' the ' Descent of Man,' and the ' Expression of the 

 Emotions.' On the other hand, ' Climbing Plants,' * Insec- 

 tivorous Plants,' the 'Movements of Plants,' and 'Forms of 

 Flowers,' were, to a large extent, illustrated by some of his 



