RIDING. II/ 



flowers, he would often laugh at the dingy high-art colours, 

 and contrast them with the bright tints of nature. I used to 

 like to hear him admire the beauty of a flower ; it was a kind 

 of gratitude to the flower itself, and a personal love for its 

 delicate form and colour. I seem to remember him gently 

 touching a flower he delighted in ; it was the same simple 

 admiration that a child might have. 



He could not help personifying natural things. This feeling 

 came out in abuse as well as in praise e.g. of some seedlings 

 "The little beggars are doing just what I don't want them 

 to." He would speak in a half-provoked, half-admiring way 

 of the ingenuity of a Mimosa leaf in screwing itself out of a 

 basin of water in which he had tried to fix it. One might 

 see the same spirit in his way of speaking of Sundew, earth- 

 worms, &c.* 



Within my memory, his only outdoor recreation, besides 

 walking, was riding, which he took to on the recommendation 

 of Dr. Bence Jones, and we had the luck to find for him the 

 easiest and quietest cob in the world, named " Tommy." He 

 enjoyed these rides extremely, and devised a number of short 

 rounds which brought him home in time for lunch. Our 

 country is good for this purpose, owing to the number of small 

 valleys which give a variety to what in a flat country would 

 be a dull loop of road. He was not, I think, naturally fond 

 of horses, nor had he a high opinion of their intelligence, and 

 Tommy was often laughed at for the alarm he showed at 

 passing and repassing the same heap of hedge-clippings as 

 he went round the field. I think he used to feel surprised at 

 himself, when he remembered how bold a rider he had been, 

 and how utterly old age and bad health had taken away his 

 nerve. He would say that riding prevented him thinking 



* Cf. Leslie Stephen's 'Swift,' father's observations on worms, 



1882, p. 200, where Swift's inspec- " The difference is," says Mr. 



tion of the manners and customs Stephen, "that Darwin had none 



of servants are compared to my but kindly feelings for worms v " 



