CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN. 349 



though hating extravagance, to perform many gen- 

 erous actions. For instance, Mr. B , a small 



manufacturer in Shrewsbury, came to him one day, 

 and said he should be bankrupt unless he could at 

 once borrow ten thousand pounds, but that he was 

 unable to give any legal security. My father heard 

 his reasons for believing that he could ultimately 

 repay the money, and, from his intuitive perception 

 of character, felt sure that he was to be trusted. 

 So he advanced this sum, which was a very large 

 one for him while young, and was after a time 

 repaid. 



" I suppose that it was his sympathy which gave 

 him unbounded power of winning confidence, and 

 as a consequence made him highly successful as a 

 physician. He began to practise before he was 

 twenty-one years old, and his fees during the first 

 year paid for the keep of two horses and a servant. 

 On the following year his practice was large, and 

 so continued for about sixty years, when he ceased 

 to attend on any one. His great success as a doc- 

 tor was the more remarkable as he told me that 

 he at first hated his profession so much that if he 

 had been sure of the smallest pittance, or if his 

 father had given him any choice, nothing should 

 have induced him to follow it. To the end of his 

 life, the thought of an operation almost sickened 

 him, and he could scarcely endure to see a person 

 bled a horror which he has transmitted to me." 



Charles went to the day-school in Shrewsbury, 

 when he was eight years old. " By the time I went 



