The Days of a Man 



D883 



A walk 



across 



Kent 



While in England we frequently traveled by train 

 for an hour or two in the morning, usually to the 

 southwest; then getting out almost anywhere, we 

 walked on until luncheon time, after which we took 

 another railroad run, followed again by a walk 

 toward evening. In this pleasant, intimate fashion 

 (to be highly commended) we beat our way to 

 Canterbury, Hastings, Winchester, Salisbury, and 

 on to Devon and return. At one time three of us, 

 A. M. Braislin, a divinity student from New York, 

 six feet five, Swain, six feet four and robust in pro- 

 portion, and I, a modest six feet two, walked from 

 Dover to Canterbury. We made some impression 

 on the Kentish folk. *'Just look at those men!" 

 I heard some one say. And a child, interested in 

 comparative theology, asked her mother: "Is that 

 man as big as God.?" 



On Charles Darwin, the master of masters in 

 Zoology, I had not ventured to call during my first 

 visit to London, and his death in 1882 robbed me of 

 the privilege of ever meeting him face to face. But 

 the following year I made a special pilgrimage to 

 his fine old home near Down. Parslow, his butler, 

 chatted freely: 



Parslow For the first twenty years after Mr. Darwin's return from 



on Darwin South America, his health was very bad, much more so than 

 later. He was an early riser, and usually went out for a walk 

 all around the place before his breakfast, which he took alone. 

 That over, he went to his study to write until the rest of the 

 family had finished their own meal. Mrs. Darwin now came 

 in and read to him for half an hour while he lay on the sofa. 

 Afterward he wrote till noon, and again after luncheon for a 

 while. Then he and Mrs. Darwin used to go to the bedroom, 

 where he rested and sometimes smoked a cigarette while she 

 again read aloud. He liked stories with happy endings. 



n 272 :] 



