XXV 



LIFE AT EASTBOURNE 469 



phyteuma ; and later on, in the folds of the hills where he 

 had marked them, the English gentians. 



After his walk, a cup of tea \vas followed by more read- 

 ing or writing till seven ; after dinner another pipe, and then 

 he would return to my mother in the drawing-room, and 

 settle down in his particular arm-chair, with some tough 

 volume of history or theology to read, every now and again 

 scoring a passage for future reference, or jotting a brief note 

 on the margin. At ten he would migrate to the study for a 

 final smoke before going to bed. 



Such was his routine, broken by occasional visits to 

 town on business, for he was still Dean of the Royal Col- 

 lege of Science and a trustee of the British Museum. Old 

 friends came occasionally to stay for a few days, and tea- 

 time would often bring one or two of the small circle of 

 friends whom he had made in Eastbourne. These also he 

 occasionally visited, but he scarcely ever dined out. The 

 talking was too tiring. 



The change to Eastbourne cut away a whole series of 

 interests, but it imported a new and very strong one into 

 my father's life. His garden was not only a convenient 

 ambulatory, but, \vith its growing flowers and trees, became 

 a novel and intense pleasure, until he began " to think with 

 Candide that ' Cultivons notre jardin ' comprises the whole 

 duty of man." 



It was strange that this interest should have come sud- 

 denly at the end of his life. Though he had won the prize 

 in Lindley's botanical class lie had never been a field bot- 

 anist till he was attracted by the Swiss gentians. As has 

 been said before, his love of nature had never run to col- 

 lecting either plants or animals. Mere " spider-hunters and 

 hay-naturalists," as a German friend called them, he was 

 inclined to regard as the camp-followers of science. It was 

 the engineering side of nature, the unity of plan of animal 

 construction, worked out in infinitely varying detail, which 

 engrossed him. Walking once with Hooker in the Rhone 

 valley, where the grass was alive with red and green grass- 

 hoppers, he said, '' I would give anything to be as interested 

 in them as you are." 



