144 DARWINIANISM. 



Darwin to have been equally sceptical ; whereas, for at 

 least two-thirds of the way, the manifestations involved 

 are parallel with facts to little profit as yet truly. 

 Celts he met in this wise (ii. 160): "Whether the 

 pieces of flint are really tools their numbers make me 

 doubt I came to the conclusion that they were angular 

 fragments broken by ice action." It is at least interest- 

 ing to find Mr. Darwin turn his back on others, precisely 

 as others turned their backs on him. 



That is a small, but still, so far, a veritable example of 

 Mr. Darwin's genuineness of nature what is told of his 

 " pet economy in paper." In fact, Mr. Darwin, with all 

 his tolerance, and all his liberality, and all his generosity, 

 was, even in the midst of his riches, too genuine a man to 

 waste that is, not to be economical. He kept for notes, 

 in an express portfolio, all the blank sheets of letters 

 received ; he wrote on the backs of old MS., etc. nay, 

 " his feeling about paper extended to waste-paper," and 

 he saw with a sort of grudge, and " objected, half in 

 fun, to the careless custom of throwing a spill into the 

 fire " after use. It is, somehow, quite in accordance 

 with the same simple solidity of nature that, before 

 buying pigeons when he needs them for his experiments, 

 he thinks it necessary to apply to an expert for some 

 relative information (" before I go to a seller, I am really 

 anxious to know something about them, not to expose my 

 excessive ignorance," ii. 46). So, about investments, I 

 can suppose him, when such necessities disagreeably or 

 unexpectedly even, interrupt him in his one sole, all- 

 absorbing occupation, to put questions to some supposed 

 capable friend, or look at newspapers and share-lists, 

 before writing his solicitor Ah, but his solicitor was as 

 much a gentleman and an honest man as himself (" he 

 had never seen my father," says Mr. Francis, yet spoke 

 of his letters to him, in which " everything I did 



