His Friends. 



of his father, an eminent physician, had not a pain- 

 ful operation in the hospital at Edinburgh practically 

 ended his career in medicine, as he tells us that he 

 bore it as long as he could, and then rushed from the 

 room ; the scene, which was enacted before the days 

 of chloroform, haunting him for years. This is sug- 

 gestive of the extremely sympathetic temperament 

 of the boy Darwin ; his entire nature was one of 

 tenderness, not only to his companions, but to all 

 living things. While his school days were not re- 

 sulting in any apparent accumulation of knowledge 

 in the lines indicated by the curriculum, we find the 

 love of natural history steadily growing. 



He was an ardent collector of minerals ; and the 

 love for insect studies, which he developed when but 

 ten years of age, down by the sea-shore in Wales, 

 was one of the delightful memories in later life. At 

 Edinburgh he found congenial friends in young men 

 who were interested in natural science, and the asso- 

 ciations and friendships then formed had no little 

 influence in shaping his future career. Here he met 

 Ainsworth, who afterwards became a famous geolo- 

 gist, and wrote a book on Assyria ; Dr. Coldstream, 

 a writer on zoological subjects ; and Hardie, who 

 was a promising botanist. Of all the friends made 

 at this time, perhaps Dr. Grant exercised the great- 

 est influence over him. With this zoologist he made 

 many trips to the sea-coast, became familiar with the 

 methods of current investigation, and it was during 

 these days that the observations regarding the Flus- 

 tra, mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, were 

 made, Dr. Grant referred to Darwin's investigations 



