EARLY YOUTH 33 



have done. There was ever something in him of 

 the mountaineer, hurrying on and watching every 

 hour that he may reach the summit. The day 

 of rest may come afterwards, down below in the 

 valley. In truth, it never came. It is well known 

 that the man wrote some of his most difficult, most 

 widely read, and most controverted works subse- 

 quently in a few months, encroaching upon his 

 night's rest until his health was endangered. In 

 a remote Cingalese village in Ceylon, where the 

 enervating tropical climate forces even the strongest 

 to indulge in the afternoon siesta, he tells himself 

 that, in view of the great expense of the journey, 

 each day is worth a five-pound note. He refuses 

 to sleep long hours or take the siesta, rises at five 

 in the morning, and uses the hottest hours of the 

 day, from twelve to four, for "anatomical and 

 microscopic work, observing and drawing, and for 

 packing up the material collected." He met to 

 the full the claim of the nineteenth century, for 

 all the inner poetic tendency of his character. 

 Such a character he must have had to become 

 a philosopher, as he has done; but it lay, as it were, 

 in deeper recesses of his being. To the eye of the 

 observer he seemed to be ever rushing on with 

 a watch in his hand until old age. When we think 

 of the enormous number of problems and the vast 

 range of interests that brought him into the front 

 rank in the nineteenth century, we may say that 

 he advanced at a pace that would have given 

 concern to the aged adviser of his youth in his 

 small world. 



3 



