CHARLES EGBERT DARWIN. 389 



amount of his wonderful patience. For all the lat- 

 ter years of his life she never left him for a night ; 

 and her days were so planned that all his resting 

 hours might be shared with her. She shielded 

 him from every avoidable annoyance, and omitted 

 nothing that might save him trouble, or prevent 

 him becoming overtired, or that might alleviate 

 the many discomforts of his ill-health. I hesitate 

 to speak thus freely of a thing so sacred as the 

 life-long devotion which prompted all this constant 

 and tender care. But it is ... a principal feature 

 of his life that for nearly forty years he never knew 

 one day of the health of ordinary men, and that 

 thus his life was one long struggle against the 

 weariness and strain of sickness." And yet he 

 accomplished all his wonderful work ! 



"In his relationship towards my mother, his 

 tender and sympathetic nature was shown in its 

 most beautiful aspect. In her presence he found 

 his happiness, and through her his life which 

 might have been overshadowed by gloom became 

 one of content and quiet gladness." 



He was the idol of his children, who used " to 

 bribe him with sixpence to come and play in work- 

 ing hours." " We all knew the sacredness of 

 working time," says Mr. Darwin's daughter, " but 

 that any one should resist sixpence seemed an im- 

 possibility. . . . Another mark of his unbounded 

 patience was the way in which we were suffered 

 to make raids into the study when we had an ab- 

 solute need of sticking-plaster, string, pins, scis- 



