LITERARY WORK IN DEVONSHIRE. 273 



have grasped, or rather, perhaps, to have been prepared 

 to grasp, the doctrine of biological development. 



But it has to be confessed that such evolutionism as he> 

 accepted was timid and unphilosophical, and that sooner 

 or later he would certainly have been brought to a halt by 

 the definite theory of Darwin. The belief in a direct 

 creative act from without, peopling the world with a sudden 

 full-blown efflorescence of fauna and flora, was a part of 

 my father's very being, and he would have abandoned the 

 entire study of science sooner than relinquish it. He was 

 aware of his limitations as a thinker ; he knew his mind to 

 be one which observed closely and minutely, and failed to 

 take in a wide horizon. He once, in later years, referring 

 to his isolation as a zoologist, said to me that he felt him- 

 self to be a disciple of Cuvier, born into an age of successors 

 of Lamarck ; and his position could scarcely be defined more 

 exactly. Yet it seems to me possible that if my mother 

 had lived, he might have been prevented from putting 

 himself so fatally and prominently into opposition to the 

 new ideas. He might probably have been content to 

 leave others to fight out the question on a philosophical 

 basis, and might himself have quietly continued observing 

 facts, and noting his observations with his early elegance 

 and accuracy. 



That his mind was morbid, and his nerves unstrung, is 

 clearly enough to be discovered from reading the singularly 

 painful little. Memorial of the Last Days on Earth of Emily '^ 

 Gosse, which he published in April, 1857. In this volume, 

 written with distressing ability, he gives a picture of the 

 illness and death of his wife which it is exceedingly difficult 

 to describe, so harsh, so minute, so vivid are the lines, so 

 little are the customary conventions of a memoir preserved. 

 This little book, which was addressed, of course, to an 

 extremely limited circle, was received with great displeasure 



T 



