Sir J. Mackintosh. n 



clever a youth. Here he made the acquaintance of 

 Sir J. Mackintosh, whose well-known conversational 

 powers appear to have impressed the young natural- 

 ist, and that the elder man foresaw something in his 

 young friend may be surmised from his remark, 

 long remembered by Danvin : " There is something 

 in you that interests me." In these boyhood days 

 we see many qualities that Darwin himself modestly 

 disclaims : a steadfastness of purpose, a perceptive 

 faculty, and demand for something beyond the limited 

 educational facilities of the day. His actual school- 

 ing may be said to have been a failure, as he neglected 

 the dry classical studies or forgot them ; yet the les- 

 sons he drew from the broad field of nature were well 

 learned and never forgotten. 



