64 DARWINIANISM. 



He, this good father, was " clever but heretical," says 

 Miss Meteyard ; and then she describes his look, just as 

 though giving shape to the substance and material 

 which we have sketched. " He had," she says, " a 

 powerful, unimpassioned, mild and thoughtful face." 

 Fancy it powerful, unimpassioned, mild above the 

 huge, snuff-coloured frame! Was it wonderful in 

 Charles the full, deep, ever-abiding love he gave this 

 man ? " His reverence for him was boundless : he would 

 have wished to judge everything else in the world dis- 

 passionately, but anything his father had said was 

 received almost with implicit faith." " As a rule he 

 put small faith in doctors ; " but, for instinct, skill, 

 treatment, his belief in his father was " unlimited." It 

 was astonishing how he remembered his father's opinions, 

 and was able to quote some hint of his in most cases of 

 illness. He hated at first his profession, Charles said ; 

 with the smallest pittance to live on, or if he had been 

 given any choice, nothing should have induced him to 

 follow it. To the end of his life the thought of an 

 operation sickened him, and he could scarcely endure to 

 see a person bled a horror which he transmitted to his 

 son. Old Erasmus was made of sterner stuff; he could 

 not get enough of the lancet ! 



It is characteristic of the son, what he tells of a little 

 rasp between his father and himself. He, Charles, when 

 a boy, was not remarkable for aptitude at school. Per- 

 fectly well-conditioned by nature, his interest lay with 

 living things without, and not with dead vocables within. 

 He was immensely fond of shooting, too. So, on these 

 showings, it seems, his father, in a moment of ill-humour, 

 burst out upon him in this way : " You care for nothing 

 but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a 

 disgrace to yourself and all your family ! " This, " to my 

 deep mortification," says Charles, " my father once said to 



