CHARLES DARWIN 235 



and from such hearsay reports as passed outwards 

 from the privacy of his country home, grieved as for 

 the loss of a dear friend. It is remarkable that 

 probably no scientific man of his day was personally 

 less familiar to the mass of his fellow-countrymen. 

 He seemed to shun all the usual modes of contact with 

 them. His weak health, domestic habits, and absorbing 

 work kept him in the seclusion of his own quiet house- 

 hold. In later years his face was seldom to be seen at 

 the meetings of scientific societies, or at those gather- 

 ings where the discoveries of science are expounded to 

 more popular audiences. He shrank from public con- 

 troversy, although no man was ever more vigorously 

 attacked and more completely misrepresented. Never- 

 theless, when he died, the affectionate regret that 

 followed him to the grave came not alone from his own 

 personal friends, but from thousands of sympathetic 

 mourners in all parts of the world, who had never 

 known or seen him. Men had ample material for 

 judging of his work, and in the end had given their 

 judgment with general acclaim. Of the man himself, 

 however, they could know but little, yet enough of 

 his character shone forth in his work to indicate its 

 tenderness and goodness. Men instinctively felt him 

 to be in every way one of the great ones of the 

 earth, whose removal from the living world leaves 

 mankind poorer in moral worth as well as in intellect. 

 So widespread has been this conviction, that the story 

 of his life has been eagerly longed for. It might 

 contain no eventful incidents, but it would reveal the 

 man as he was, and show the method of his working 

 and the secret of his greatness. 



