58 THE PEESONALITY OF CHARLES DARWIN 



a time daily I am able to work. If I had any 

 regular duties, like you and Hooker, I should 

 do absolutely nothing in science,' ^ he wrote to 

 Huxley. But financial independence was not 

 the only nor indeed the most essential condition 

 under which Darwin's life-work became possible. 

 Francis Darwin has told us, in touching and 

 beautiful words, of the loving care with which 

 his father's delicate health was safeguarded and 

 sustained. 



'It is, I repeat, a principal feature of his life, that for 

 nearly forty years he never knew one day of the health of 

 ordinary men, and that thus his life was one long struggle 

 against the weariness and strain of sickness. And this 

 cannot be told without speaking of the one condition which 

 enabled him to bear the strain and fight out the struggle to 

 the end."' 



Darwin's life, in the supreme need which can 

 be gathered from these pathetic words, was also 

 brightened by a full measure of the happiness 

 which comes to a father who is devoted to his 

 children. We are told of one of his sons, about 

 four years old, offering him sixpence if he would 

 only leave his work and come and play with 

 them. ' We all knew the sacredness of working 



1 July 20, 1860. More Letters, i. 158. 



* lAfe and Letters, i. 160. See also the beautiful passage in 

 Darwin's autobiography which expresses his indebtedness to his 

 wife. It was omitted from the Life and Letters published during 

 Mrs. Darwin's lifetime, but has now appeared in More Letters, i. 30. 

 The following sentence from a letter written by Darwin to his 

 brother Erasmus bears upon an opinion that has often been 

 expressed : ' I do not believe it [sea-sickness] was the cause of my 

 subsequent ill-health, which has lost me so many years,' June 30, 

 1864.- More Letters, L 247. 



