98 REMINISCENCES. [Ch. IV. 



arrangement of his facts. In his Life of Erasmus Darwin, as 

 it was first printed in slips, the growth of the book from a 

 skeleton was plainly visible. The arrangement was altered 

 afterwards, because it was too formal and categorical, and 

 seemed to give the character of his grandfather rather by 

 means of a list of qualities than as a complete picture. 



It was only within the last few years that he adopted a plan 

 of writing which he was convinced suited him best, and which 

 is described in the Becollections ; namely, writing a roug?_ 

 copy straight off without the slightest attention to style. It 

 was characteristic of him that he felt unable to write with 

 sufficient want of care if he used his best paper, and thus it 

 was that he wrote on the backs of old proofs or manuscript. 

 The rough copy was then reconsidered, and a fair copy was 

 made. For this purpose he had foolscap paper ruled at wide 

 intervals, the lines being needed to provent him writing so 

 closely that correction became difficult. The fair copy was 

 then corrected, and was recopied before being sent to the 

 printers. The copying was done by Mr. E. Norman, who 

 began this work many years ago when village schoolmaster at 

 Down. My father became so used to Mr. Norman's hand- 

 writing, that he could not correct manuscript, even when 

 clearly written out by one of his children, until it had been 

 recopied by Mr. Norman. The MS., on returning from Mr. 

 Norman, was once more corrected, and then sent off to the 

 printers. Then came the work of revising and correcting the 

 proofs, which my father found especially wearisome. 



When the book was passing through the "slip" stage he 

 was glad to have corrections and suggestions from others. 

 Thus my mother looked over the proofs of the Origin. In 

 some oi the later works my sister, Mrs. Litchfield, did much 

 of the correction. After my sister's marriage perhaps most 

 of the work fell to my share. 



My sister, Mrs. Litchfield, writes : — 



"This work was very interesting in itself, and it was 

 inexpressibly exhilarating to work for him. He was so 

 ready to be convinced that any sugges alteration was an 

 improvement, and so full of gratitude for the trouble taken. 

 I do not think that he ever forgot to tell me what improve- 

 ment he thought I had made, and he used almost to excuse 

 himself if he did not agree with any correction. I think 

 I felt the singular modesty and graciousness of his nature 

 through thus working for him in a way I never should 

 otherwise have done." 



Perhaps the commonest corrections needed were of obscuri- 



