CHAKLES DARWIN. Ill 



instance, could for a moment, or even by chance, think 

 such ideas as the stripling, or who could be so absorbed 

 and engrossed as the man, in the second instance, should 

 still be zealous and jealous to be known as a " Liberal 

 or Eadical," at the same time, too, that " his opinions on 

 these matters" (politics) were without "any serious 

 amount of thought." But we must remember that Mr. 

 Darwin was an Englishman withal, at bottom a stub- 

 born, determined Englishman, and quite capable of 

 political gall, of hating a Tory, simply as a Tory, with 

 his whole heart. Though never was father more 

 indulgent with his children, and " it was delightful to 

 draw for him," yet here, too, he was the man, and could 

 take on the negative ; " he always looked closely at 

 the drawing," it is said, and " easily detected mistakes 

 or carelessness." We have seen the deliberately firm 

 front he always bore to his young captain also. Then, 

 we may almost say there was no man he was softer to, 

 or even nattered more, than Sir Charles Lyell ; yet see 

 how determinedly he speaks his mind to him when he 

 thinks that he has reason to be offended. And such 

 reason was all too clear to him when he found Lyell, 

 after having, as it most certainly seemed, unmistakeably 

 declared himself for evolution, suddenly shilly-shallying, in 

 his Antiquity of Man, back again into the arms of the 

 creationists. The letters on this subject (instructive, 

 too, as to both Lyell and Darwin laying stress on, first, 

 variation, and second, selection, as the two moments 

 constitutive and exhaustive of the special, proper, and 

 peculiar theory concerned) are very interesting, and 

 occur iii. 7-21. He who reads them will see that Mr. 

 Darwin by no means minces matters with Lyell ; for all 

 his habitual deference to him, he tells him his mind. 

 This is admirable here, too, that Mr. Darwin does not 

 express himself one whit stronger to Hooker than to 



