THE PERIOD OF INCUBATION 65 



Miss Emma Wedgwood, daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, 

 of Maer Hall ; and, after three years of married life in 

 London, he settled at last at Down House, near Orping- 

 ton, in Kent, where for the rest of his days he passed 

 his time among his conservatories and his pigeons, his 

 garden and his fowls, with his children growing up 

 quietly beside him, and the great thinking world of 

 London within easy reach of a few minutes' journey. 

 His private means enabled him to live the pleasant life 

 of an English country gentleman, and devote himself 

 unremittingly to the pursuit of science. Ill health, 

 indeed, interfered sadly with his powers of work ; but 

 system and patience did wonders during his working 

 days, which were regularly parcelled out between study 

 and recreation, and utilised and economised in the 

 very highest possible degree. Early to bed and early 

 to rise, wandering unseen among the lanes and paths, 

 or riding slowly on his favourite black cob, the great 

 naturalist passed forty years happily and usefully at 

 Down, where all the village knew and loved him. A 

 man of singular simplicity and largeness of heart, 

 Charles Darwin never really learnt to know his own 

 greatness. And that charming innocence and ignorance 

 of his real value made the value itself all the greater. 

 His moral qualities, indeed, were no less admirable and 

 unique in their way than his intellectual faculties. To 

 that charming candour and delightful unostentatious- 

 ness which everybody must have noticed in his published 

 writings, he united in private life a kindliness of dis- 

 position, a width of sympathy, and a ready generosity 

 which made him as much beloved by his friends as he 

 was admired an4 respected by all Europe. The very 

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