VIII 



CHARLES DARWIN 245 



intellect which had no superior, and with a charac- 

 ter which was even nobler than the intellect ; but, 

 in all parts of the civilised world, it would seem 

 that those whose business it is to feel the pulse of 

 nations and to know what interests the masses of 

 mankind, were well aware that thousands of their 

 readers would think the world the poorer for 

 Darwin's death, and would dwell with eager 

 interest upon every incident of his history. In 

 France, in Germany, in Austro-Hungary, in Italy, 

 in the United States, writers of all shades of 

 opinion, for once unanimous, have paid a willing 

 tribute to the worth of our great countryman, 

 ignored in life by the official representatives of the 

 kingdom, but laid in death among his peers in 

 Westminster Abbey by the will of the intelligence 

 of the nation. 



It is not for us to allude to the sacred sorrows 

 of the bereaved home at Down ; but it is no secret 

 that, outside that domestic group, there are many 

 to whom Mr. Darwin's death is a wholly irreparable 

 loss. And this not merely because of his wonder- 

 fully genial, simple, and generous nature; his 

 cheerful and animated conversation, and the in- 

 finite variety and accuracy of his information ; but 

 because the more one knew of him, the more he 

 seemed the incorporated ideal of a man of science. 

 Acute as were his reasoning powers, vast as was 

 his knowledge, marvellous as was his tenacious 

 industry, under physical difficulties which would 



