348 CHARLES EGBERT DARWIN. 



brick house at the top of a terraced bank leading 

 down to the Severn. The greenhouse with its 

 varied plants, the ornamental shrubs and trees in 

 the grounds, became a delight as soon as the boy 

 was old enough to observe them. 



The mother, Susannah, the daughter of Josiah 

 Wedgwood of Etruria, a woman with a sweet and 

 happy face, died when Charles was eight years old, 

 leaving five other children ; Marianne, Caroline, 

 Erasmus, Susan, and Catherine. Charles says of 

 her in his autobiography, "It is odd that I can 

 remember hardly anything about her except her 

 death-bed, her black velvet gown, and her curiously 

 constructed work-table." She evidently encouraged 

 the boy's love for flowers, for he used to say, at 

 school, that his mother had taught him " how, by 

 looking at the inside of the blossom, the name of 

 the plant could be discovered." 



The father, Eobert Waring Darwin, was a well 

 known physician, a man of fine physique and 

 courtly manner, who had amassed wealth by his 

 skill and business ability. Charles's admiration of 

 him was unbounded : " the wisest man I ever 

 knew," he used often to say. 



" His chief mental characteristics," said Darwin, 

 " were his powers of observation and his sympathy, 

 neither of which have I ever seen exceeded or even 

 equalled. His sympathy was not only with the 

 distresses of others, but in a greater degree with 

 the pleasures of all around him. This led him to 

 be always scheming to give pleasure to others, and, 



