390 CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN. 



SOTS, stamps, foot-rule, or hammer. These and 

 other such necessaries were always to be found in 

 the study, and it was the only place where this 

 was a certainty. We used to feel it wrong to go 

 in during work-time ; still, when the necessity was 

 great we did so. I remember his patient look when 

 he said once, ' Don't you think you could not come 

 in again ; I have been interrupted very often ? ' . . . 

 He cared for all our pursuits and interests, and 

 lived our lives with us in a way that very few 

 fathers do." 



His son says : " The way he brought us up is 

 shown by a little story about my brother Leonard, 

 which my father was fond of telling. He came 

 into the drawing-room, and found Leonard dancing 

 about on the sofa, which was forbidden, for the 

 sake of the springs, and said, 'Oh, Lenny, Lenny, 

 that's against all rules ! ' and received for answer, 

 ' Then, I think you'd better go out of the room.' I 

 do not believe he ever spoke an angry word to any 

 of his children in his life ; but I am certain that it 

 never entered our heads to disobey him. . . . How 

 often, when a man, I have wished, when my father 

 was behind my chair, that he would pass his hand 

 over my hair, as he used to do when I was a boy. 

 He allowed his grown-up children to laugh with 

 and at him, and was, generally speaking, on terms 

 of perfect equality with us." 



He was very fond of flowers, and also of dogs. 

 When he had been absent from home, on his return 

 his white fox-terrier, Polly, " would get wild with 



