40 DAKWINIAXISM. 



own person, manners, and habits. In person he was tall, 

 corpulent, heavy-limbed, heavy-faced, pock-pitted, with a 

 stoop in the shoulder, and without pretension to either 

 beauty or symmetry. Acid fruits, with sugar, and all 

 sorts of creams, and butter, were his luxuries ; but he 

 always ate plentifully of animal diet. Such liberal 

 alimentary regimen, indeed, he prescribed to all, even to 

 infants. En revanche, however, he avowed a conviction 

 (f the pernicious effects of all vinous fluids an absolute 

 1 error of spirits, of all sorts and diluted as they might 

 be. He was not famous for holding religious subjects in 

 veneration, and seems to have denied human account- 

 ability as a gloomy Calvinistic superstition. He got soon 

 sore when opposed in argument or in action ; and was apt 

 in such circumstances to take his revenge in sarcasms of 

 a very cutting edge. He was prone to suspicion, and of 

 extreme scepticism in regard to human truth. Even 

 generally his manner of speech was not pleasant to 

 individual self-love. Colloquial despotism grew upon 

 him ; and he was absolutely intolerant of egotism in 

 others, meeting it indeed with jocose but wounding 

 irony. He could not joke, however, when he himself 

 was assailed. The " Loves of the Triangles," a burlesque 

 imitation of himself, annoyed him. " Instead of joking 

 on it," says Miss Seward (p. 208), "he pretended never to 

 have seen or heard of it." And the grandson (Charles), 

 who had come to see differently, cannot resist the remark- 

 here : " On the subject of this satire, Dr. Darwin wanted 

 presence of mind ! " 



He is described, nevertheless, as having been pro- 

 fessionally hospitable, generous, and to the poor charitable. 

 And should any one invidiously accentuate professional 

 here, the thirteen years with his first wife may, for their 

 testimony, be triumphantly pointed to. She loved him, 

 and she died happy. " He has prolonged my days," she 



