64 THE PERSONALITY OF CHARLES DARWIN 



The autobiography (1876) contains these 

 words : 



'My chief enjoyment and sole employment throughout 

 life has been scientific work ; and the excitement from such 

 work makes me for the time forget, or drives quite away, my 

 daily discomfort.' 1 



The four following passages are all taken from 

 letters to Sir Joseph Hooker : 



1858. 'It is an accursed evil to a man to become so 

 absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.' 2 



1861. ' . . . I cannot be idle, much as I wish it, and am 

 never comfortable except when at work. The word holiday 

 is written in a dead language for me, and much I grieve 

 at it.' 3 



1863. The same inability to find enjoyment in 

 a holiday is expressed in the foUowing passage, 

 which also includes a humorous allusion to the 

 ease with which his work was interrupted : 



' . . . Notwithstanding the very pleasant reason you give 

 for our not enjoying a holiday, namely, that we have no 

 vices, it is a horrid bore. I have been trying for health's 

 sake to be idle, with no success. What I shall now have to 

 do, will be to erect a tablet in Down Church, " Sacred to the 

 Memory, &c.," and officially die, and then publish books, 

 " by the late Charles Darwin," for I cannot think what has 

 come over me of late ; I always suffered from the excitement 

 of talking, but now it has become ludicrous. I talked lately 

 1 hours (broken by tea by myself) with my nephew, and I 

 was [ill] half the night. It is a fearful evil for self and 

 family.' 4 



1868. '. . . I am a withered leaf for every subject except 

 Science. It sometimes makes me hate Science, though God 



1 Life and Letters, i. 79. 2 Oct. 13. Life and Letters, ii. 139. 

 3 Feb. 4. Ibid., ii. 360. 4 Jan. 3. Ibid., iii. 5. 



