62 THE PERSONALITY OF CHARLES DARWIN 



his health— 'nothing else makes me forget my 

 ever-recurrent uncomfortable sensations,' — and 

 in order to maintain it the most perfect regu- 

 larity was necessary, the absence of all effort 

 in other directions, all excitement. During his 

 regular hours Darwin worked 'with a kind of 

 restrained eagerness ', expending his strength up 

 to the furthest possible limit, so that he would 

 suddenly stop in dictating, ' with the words, 

 "I believe I mustn't do any more".' It is 

 quite clear that, with his health as it was, no 

 other effort was possible to Darwin during that 

 day. Professor Bradley has spoken of the 

 errors of interpretation due to the reading of 

 Shakespeare with a slack imagination ; ^ and 

 any literature worth calling literature demands 

 effort on the part of the reader. Effort was the 

 one thing Darwin could not give. The ordering of 

 Darwin's life was entirely controlled by the two 

 inexorable and interdependent demands of work 

 and health. 



' 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 alike, each with their stated intervals of work and rest. 

 It is almost impossible, except for those who watched his 

 daily life, to realise how essential to his well-being was the 

 regular routine that I have sketched : and with what pain 

 and difficulty anything beyond it was attempted. Any 

 public appearance, even of the most modest kind, was an 



' Shakespearean Tragedy, London, 1904, 349. 



