294 OBITUARY x 
every particle of available energy could not have 
enabled him to achieve a fraction of the vast 
amount of labour he got through, in the course of 
the following forty years, had not the wisest and the 
most loving care unceasingly surrounded him from 
the time of his marriage in 1839. As early as 
1842, the failure of health was so marked 
that removal from London became imperatively 
necessary ; and Darwin purchased a house and 
grounds at Down, a solitary hamlet in Kent, which 
was his home for the rest of his life. Under the 
strictly regulated conditions of a valetudinarian. 
existence, the intellectual activity of the invalid 
might have put to shame most healthy men; and,. 
so long as he could hold his head up, there was no. 
limit to the genial kindness of thought and action 
for all about him. Those friends who were 
privileged to share the intimate life of the house- 
hold at Down have an abiding memory of the 
cheerful restfulness which pervaded and character- 
ised it. | 
After mentioning his settlement at Down, 
Darwin writes in his Autobiography :— 
“My chief enjoyment and sole employment 
throughout life has been scientific work ; and the 
excitement from such work makes me, for the time. 
forget, or drives quite away, my daily discomfort. 
I have, therefore, nothing to record during the rest 
of my life, except the publication of my several 
books.” (I, p. 79.) 
