42 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. 



characteristic of his great master in science also. 

 There has been some little discussion about the 

 time of his life at which he really did begin 

 visiting Mr. Darwin. It will be remembered 

 that he was still so much of a child when Mr. 

 Darwin came to Down that when his father bade 

 him guess what good thing had come for him, 

 he guessed " a pony." But the regular visits 

 began when he was no longer, indeed, a school- 

 boy, but of an age when most boys now, and 

 even then, would be at school. In a word, he 

 saw much of Mr. Darwin at the time of his life 

 when a lad is perhaps the most readily and, 

 at the same time, the most permanently in- 

 fluenced, for good or for ill, by an example that 

 makes strong appeal to him. 



Science, however, in spite of these " finds," 

 and of the notice into which they helped to bring 

 him, was not engrossing the whole of his attention. 

 Miss Hordern came often, as a guest, to High 

 Elms in 1854 and 1855, and a result of these 

 frequent visits was that on Friday, October 13, 

 there is the laconic entry in his diary : " Wrote 

 to Nelly to ask her to marry me," followed, 

 after the decent interval of a week, by the 

 equally brief, but satisfactory note, on the 20th, 

 " Nelly said she would." He adds, on the 25th : 

 " Everybody seems pleased, and all are as kind 

 as possible. We are to live at first at High 

 Elms." 



They were married in April 1856, and went 

 to live, as previously determined, with Sir John 

 and Lady Lubbock at High Elms. There are 

 not many alive now who are able to remember 



