172 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 



home at Down, in Kent, on the 19th day of April, 

 1882, at the age of seventy-three years. A Hfe 

 more calm and peaceful than his, the world does not 

 often see. At home, in the country, surrounded 

 by his family, far away from the noise of politics 

 and undisturbed by clashing systems of philosophy, 

 he worked on in patience. For years, almost an 

 invalid, still feeling the effects of his long seasick- 

 ness while on the voyage of the " Beagle ; " averse to 

 display or controversy ; sure of the strength of truth, 

 — which some generation would hear, if his own 

 did not, — he sat and watched his flowers and vines 

 and trees and pigeons, reporting from time to time 

 the things he saw and their underlying meanings. 

 *' For years," said one of Darwin's servants to 

 me, ** Mr. Darwin used to spend his days in the 

 greenhouse with his plants, tying strings to them 

 and trying to make them do things." Neverthe- 

 less, this age is the age of Darwin ! No life in this 

 bustling nineteenth century has left so deep an 

 impress on our thought. And this impress must 

 deepen as the years roll on, until, if ever, the time 

 shall come when what w^e now know of the laws of 

 God shall have faded away, and our successors shall 

 begin again to learn like little children their ABC 

 from Mother Nature. *' Mother Nature," says 

 Huxley, *' is singularly obdurate to honeyed words. 

 Only those who understand the ways of things, and 

 can silently and effectively use them, get much 

 good out of her." 



In 1 83 1 Darwin was sent out as naturalist on 

 board of Her Majesty's Ship *' Beagle," which was 

 to take five years for a cruise around the world. 



