174 CHARLES DARWIN 



this universal and deep-seated feeling Darwin's family 

 regretfully sacrificed their own natural preference for a 

 quiet interment in the graveyard at Down. On the 

 Wednesday morning next after his death, Charles 

 Darwin's remains were borne with unwonted marks of 

 respect and ceremony, in the assembled presence of all 

 that was noble and good in Britain, to an honoured 

 grave in the precincts of the great Abbey. Wallace 

 and Huxley, Lubbock and Hooker, his nearest peers in 

 the domain of pure science, stood among the bearers who 

 held the pall. Lowell represented the republics of 

 America and of letters. Statesmen, and poets, and phi- 

 losophers, and theologians mingled with the throng of 

 scientific thinkers who crowded close around the vene- 

 rated bier. No incident of fitting pomp or dignity was 

 wanting as the organ pealed out in solemn strains the 

 special anthem composed for the occasion, to the appro- 

 priate words of the Hebrew poet, ' Happy is the man 

 that findeth wisdom.' Even the narrow Philistine 

 intelligence itself, which still knew Darwin only as the 

 man who thought we were all descended from monkeys, 

 was impressed with the sole standard of greatness open 

 to its feeble and shallow comprehension by the mere 

 solemnity and ceremony of the occasion, and began to 

 enquire with blind wonderment what this thinker had 

 done whom a whole people thus delighted to honour. 



Of Darwin's pure and exalted moral nature no 

 Englishman of the present generation can trust himself 

 to speak with becoming moderation. His love of truth, 

 his singleness of heart, his sincerity, his earnestness, 

 his modesty, his candour, his absolute sinking of self and 

 selfishness these, indeed, are all conspicuous to every 



