DR. ROBERT WARING DARWIN. 65' 



me." " But my father," he adds, " who was the kindest 

 man I ever knew, and whose memory I love with all my 

 heart, must have been angry and somewhat unjust when 

 he used such words." It is intensely characteristic, 

 namely, that these words of his father's gnawed in 

 Charles throughout his whole life. Injustice was a 

 category with him ; anything unjust went at once to 

 his heart. To his daughter once, speaking of his father 

 " with the most tender respect," it seems that he could 

 not help unbosoming himself in this reference thus : " I 

 think my father was a little unjust to me when I was 

 young, but afterwards I am thankful to think that I was 

 a prime favourite with him." 



Dr. R W. was not, as we know, a man who wrote ; 

 and so, naturally, it is much less directly, than indirectly 

 (through his position and place), that he can be called 

 "workman," or that a share in the "work" can be assigned 

 him. Directly, he really was something of a naturalist : 

 he had grounds, a greenhouse, and garden ; and he made 

 much of them. Even as a doctor, his life was an out- 

 door one, and, in a certain way, he was to the manner 

 born. Then it was to medicine that he brought up his 

 young men ; and thus the course became noted to them 

 of the subjects that would be natural for them. But it 

 was indirectly in himself, and in his personal influence as 

 father, guardian, and man, that a most real contribution 

 to the " work " must very certainly be allowed him No 

 less, indeed, lies in the son's mere memory of him. Charles 

 Darwin seems never happier than when he is talking of 

 his father. It is wonderful the things he recollects of 

 him, and thinks worth while writing down for his 

 children. His father's chief mental characteristics, his 

 powers of observation and sympathy, he " had never seen 

 exceeded nor even equalled." He sympathised not only 

 with the distress of others, but in a greater degree with 

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