DARWIN. 149 



up to advanced age, ought to take an interest in new 

 ideas, and to accept them, if he finds them true. ' That 

 was very strongly the opinion of my friend Lyell,' he 

 said ; ' but he pushed it so far as sometimes to yield to 

 the first objection, and I was then obliged to defend him 

 against himself.' Darwin had more firmness in his 

 opinions, whether from temperament, or because he had 

 published nothing without prolonged reflection. 



"Around the house no trace appeared to remain of 

 the former labours of the owner. Darwin used simple 

 means. He was not one who would have demanded 

 to have palaces built in order to accommodate labora- 

 tories. I looked for the greenhouse in which such 

 beautiful experiments on hybrid plants had been made. 

 It contained only a vine. One thing struck me, although 

 it is not rare in England, where animals are loved. A 

 heifer and a colt were feeding close to us with the tran- 

 quillity which tells of good masters, and I heard the 

 joyful barking of dogs. 'Truly,' I said to myself, 'the 

 history of the variations of animals was written here, and 

 observations must be going on, for Darwin is never idle.' 

 I did not suspect that I was walking above the dwellings 

 of those lowly beings called earthworms, the subject of 

 his last work, in which Darwin showed once more how 

 little causes in the long run produce great effects. He 

 had been studying them for thirty years, but I did not 

 know it. 



"Returning to the house, Darwin showed me his 

 library, a large room on the ground floor, very convenient 

 for a studious man; many books on the shelves ; windows 

 on two sides ; a writing-table and another for apparatus 



