SCIENCE AND POLITICS 71 



ever as a tale, I could quite understand the deep interest 

 they must have had in an artificial and vicious age, when 

 alone such compositions could be put by mothers into the 

 hands of virtuous daughters with injunctions to study them, 

 and the immense good they may have done. In an age when 

 men of fashion had no honor, and when the prejudices of 

 education or absence of it, and want of public journals kept 

 women in the dark as to the means men employed, and when 

 maudlin sensational writing did act on the brain in a way it 

 does not now, it is obvious to me that Richardson's works 

 must have frightened hosts of young women into caution 

 at any rate, and stimulated a few to good works. Be this as 

 it may, there is no doubt I suppose that his works were 

 perused by thousands as standard literature for young ladies 

 in 1750-1770, and that the change of manners was so rapid, 

 that in 1780 I find by the life of Reynolds (I am ashamed of 

 owning that I have been reading a solid book) both Richard- 

 son's and Fielding's works were considered as too coarse 

 for young ladies. 



The regret at politics clashing with science finds repeated 

 expression. 



I gnash my teeth when I think of Lubbock going 

 into Parliament [he exclaims to Darwin, April 19, 1865]. 

 The awful waste of time, of energy, of brain, of life and 

 all that makes life worth living always except a man 

 goes in for Politics, Finance or Self-aggrandizement for 

 such the up-hill drag through mire of all kinds, dinners, 

 Committees, Deputations, Lady P.'s receptions, Levees, &c. 

 &c. all this and more, may be worth a man's undergoing 

 who has a clear calling that way, and a prospect of some 25 

 years of political superiority or supremacy at the end of it. 



And (on the 7th) : 



I grudge so good a man from Science, and have a presenti- 

 ment that it will inaugurate a very trying life for him. I 

 believe I am no end of way happier in avoiding every avenue 

 to ambitious ends in my small walk of life, and so long as 

 one's mind is fully occupied, there is nothing to regret in a 

 life of mere drudgery. 



