CHARLES DAHWIN. 83 



Even many years after his voyage, as when he speaks 

 of his son, Mr. Darwin is seen to be as enthusiastic in 

 regard to beetles as ever he was ; and two years later 

 than that he cannot help writing to his friend Hooker, 

 when he hears that the latter is going to Palestine : " If 

 you go to the top of Lebanon, you ought to collect any 

 beetles under stones there," Later still, in 1869 (iii. 

 114), he envies Mr. Wallace his capture of butterflies, 

 and exclaims to him, " Certainly collecting is the best 

 sport in the world." 



I think we shall now, then, be pretty well at home 

 with Mr. Darwin's pursuit of beetles, and how it must 

 have distracted his studies otherwise at Cambridge. He 

 might force himself to gulp music, painting, and poetry ; 

 but beetles ran in his blood. And so, all things con- 

 sidered, it is further quite evident that the peculiar 

 staple of Cambridge University could not have proved 

 very inviting to him. He was unable to see " any mean- 

 ing in the early steps in Algebra ; " and, as a whole, 

 mathematics just "repugned" him. With respect to 

 Classics, he did nothing except attend a few compulsory 

 college-lectures. His tenacity, diligence, and intelligence 

 being roused, however, served him in good stead when he 

 had to get up work to pass his various examinations, the 

 Little-go, for example, " which he did easily." For his 

 B.A. degree, his preparation, he says himself, " was done 

 in a thorough manner, and so by answering well the 

 examination questions in Paley, by doing Euclid well, and 

 by not failing miserably in Classics, I gained a good place 

 among ol iro\\oi or crowd of men who do not go in 

 for honours." 



That, then, is the record of his studies, indoor or out- 

 door, at Cambridge. He seems, for some time at h'rst, 

 riding, shooting, hunting, driving, drinking, card-playing, 

 to have got into " a sporting set, including some 



