DR. ROBERT WARING DARWIN. 67 



saying that, if a man grew thinner between fifty and 

 sixty, his chance of long life was poor, and that, on the 

 contrary, it was a very good sign if he grew fatter." Or, 

 " I am in the state which, according to a very wise 

 saying of my father's, is the only fit state for asking 

 advice, viz. with my mind firmly made up, and then, as 

 my father used to say, good advice was very comfortable, 

 and it was easy to reject bad advice." Or, " my father 

 used to say that it was certain that a boy gave as mucli 

 trouble as three girls," etc. Such and such years, says 

 Charles, were the most joyful in " my happy life." A 

 happy life, and it was to his father he owed it. The 

 sweet man could only bring him up in sweetness ; and 

 sweetness remained ever afterwards the quality of his 

 being. Nay, is it not now an heirloom, a family posses- 

 sion ? If -{Life and Letters) we are allowed to see 

 Charles himself domestically at Down, it is in the midst 

 of his children ; and we can only feel in their regard 

 that they are all equally in the bond. 



" Our father and mother would not even wish to know 

 what we children were doing or thinking unless we 

 wished to tell." 



It is Mrs. Litchfield says this. Are such principles 

 in this world only English ? And can we wonder at all 

 that comes of them ? 



If the son loved thus tenderly the father, not a shade 

 less tenderly the father loved the son. How ill he took 

 it that Charles should leave him and accept that appoint- 

 ment to the Beajle I How he found this objection and 

 that objection, and ever again another objection ! And 

 how, as his son pleaded with him, and suggested " that he 

 should be deuced clever to spend more than his allow- 

 ance whilst on board," the great face suddenly broke, 

 humorously, into the somewhat irrelevant smile : " But 

 they tell me you are very clever ! " How unwillingly, at 



