SCIENCE AND POLITICS 147 



value they attach to being treated and talked to 

 seriously — not as if they were by nature comic 

 actors eternally condemned to play the buffoon. 

 By virtue of this seriousness he found himself 

 made free of their society and intimacy ; and by 

 inviting them, as if they, equally with himself, 

 were interested in scientific research, to observe 

 the jewelled brilliance, as seen through the 

 microscope, of an apparently dingy beetle's wing, 

 he would quickly fascinate them with the delights 

 of those investigations in which he himself de- 

 lighted. The observations on some of his insect 

 friends could hardly, with his varied avocations, 

 have been so complete, had he not been able to 

 enlist his children and their governess as enthusi- 

 astic students and observers with him. 



Sir John suffered a very deep grief this year 

 in the loss of his mother. It is little wonder that 

 she had been the fondest and most admiring of 

 mothers to him, and her letters, far too sacred to 

 transcribe, give fervent expression to her adora- 

 tion (the word is really not too highly pitched) 

 for this very remarkable eldest son. We have 

 seen how she appraised his character at a very 

 early age, and the passage of the years only 

 confirmed her in the original high estimate. Sir 

 John was devoted to her, accepting all her admira- 

 tion with the simple gratitude that was natural 

 to him, yet never permitting himself to be misled, 

 by that inevitably partial appreciation, into any 

 lack of sense of proportion. He was never, at 

 any period of life, later than his teens, in even 

 momentary danger, so far as I have been able 

 to discover, of being " spoilt," as the common 



