80 REMINISCENCES. [Ch. IY 



It was remarkable, too, how lie kept up his interest in 

 subjects at which he had formerly worked. This was strik- 

 ingly the case with geology. In one of his letters to Mr. Judd 

 he begs him to pay him a visit, saying that since Lyell's death 

 he hardly ever gets a geological talk. His observations, 

 made only a few years before his death, on the upright 

 pebbles in the drift at Southampton, and discussed in a letter 

 to Sir A. Geikie, afford another instance. Again, in his letters 

 to Dr. Dohrn, he shows how his interest in barnacles remained 

 alive. I think it was all due to the vitality and persistence of 

 his mind — a quality I have heard him speak of as if he felt 

 that he was strongly gifted in that respect. Not that he used 

 any such phrases as these about himself, but he would say 

 that he had the power of keeping a subject or question more 

 or less before him for a great many years. The extent to 

 which he possessed this power appears when we consider the 

 number of different problems which he solved, and the early 

 period at which some of them began to occupy him. 



It was a sure sign that he was not well when he was idle 

 at any times other than his regular resting hours ; for, as long 

 as he remained moderately well, there was no break in tho 

 regularity of his life. Week-days and Sundays passed by 

 alike, each with their stated intervals of work and rest. It 

 is almost impossible, except for those who watched his daily 

 life, to realise how essential to his well-being was the regular 

 routine that I have sketched : and with what pain and diffi- 

 culty anything beyond it was attempted. Any public ap- 

 pearance, even of the most modest kind, was an effort to him. 

 In 1871 he went to the little village church for the wedding 

 of his elder daughter, but he could hardly bear the fatigue of 

 being present through the short service. The same may bo 

 said of the few other occasions on which he was present at 

 similar ceremonies. 



I remember him many years ago at a christening; a 

 memory which has remained with me, because to us children 

 his being at church was an extraordinary occurrence. I re- 

 member his look most distinctly at his brother Erasmus's 

 funeral, as he stood in the scattering of snow, wrapped in a 

 long black funeral cloak, with a grave look of sad reverie. 



When, after an absence of many years, he attended a 

 meeting of the Linnean Society, it was felt to be, and was in 

 fact, a serious undertaking ; one not to be determined on 

 without much sinking of heart, and hardly to be carried into 

 effect without paying a penalty of subsequent suffering. In 

 the same way a breakfast-party at Sir James Paget's, with 



