READING. 127 



such a book as Balfour's ' Embryology/ where the detail, at 

 any rate, was not specially in his own line. And in the case 

 of elaborate books of the monograph type, though he did 

 not make a study of them, yet he felt the strongest admiration 

 for them. 



In the non-biological sciences he felt keen sympathy with 

 work of which he could not really judge. For instance, he 

 used to read nearly the whole of ' Nature,' though so much 

 of it deals with mathematics and physics. I have often heard 

 him say that he got a kind of satisfaction in reading articles 

 which (according to himself) he could not understand. I wish 

 I could reproduce the manner in which he would laugh at 

 himself for it. 



It was remarkable, too, how he kept up his interest in 

 subjects at which he had formerly worked. This was strik- 

 ingly the case with geology. In one of his letters to Mr. Judd 

 he begs him to pay him a visit, saying that since Lyell's death 

 he hardly ever gets a geological talk. His observations,, 

 made only a few years before his death, on the upright 

 pebbles in the drift at Southampton, and discussed in a letter 

 to Mr. Geikie, afford another instance. Again, in the letters 

 to Dr. Dohrn, he shows how his interest in barnacles remained 

 alive. I think it was all due to the vitality and persistence of 

 his mind a quality I have heard him speak of as if he felt 

 that he was strongly gifted in that respect. Not that he used 

 any such phrases as these about himself, but he would say 

 that he had the power of keeping a subject or question more 

 or less before him for a great many years. The extent to 

 which he possessed this power appears when we consider the 

 number of different problems which he solved, and the early 

 period at which some of them began to occupy him. 



It was a sure sign that he was not well when he was idle 

 at any times other than his regular resting hours ; for, as long 

 as he remained moderately well, there was no break in the 

 regularity of his life. Week-days and Sundays passed by 



