64 THE PERSONALITY OF CHAELES DARWIN 



The autobiography (1876) contains these 

 words : — 



'My chief enjoyment and sole employment throughout 

 life has been scientific work ; and the excitement from such 

 work makes me for the time forget, or drives quite away, my 

 daily discomfort." 



The four following passages are all taken from 

 letters to Sir Joseph Hooker : — 



1858. 'It is an accursed evil to a man to become so 

 absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.'^ 



1861. ' . . . I cannot be idle, much as I wish it, and am 

 never comfortable except when at work. The word holiday 

 is written in a dead language for me, and much I grieve 

 at it." 



1863. The same inability to find enjoyment in 

 a holiday is expressed in the following passage, 

 which also includes a humorous allusion to the 

 ease with which his work was interrupted : — 



' . . . Notwithstanding the very pleasant reason you give 

 for our not enjoying a holiday, namely, that we have no 

 vices, it is a horrid bore. I have been trying for health's 

 sake to be idle, with no success. What I shall now have to 

 do, will be to erect a tablet in Down Church, " Sacred to the 

 Memory, &c.," and officially die, and then publish books, 

 " by the late Charles Darwin," for I cannot think what has 

 come over me of late ; I always suifered from the excitement 

 of talking, but now it has become ludicrous. I talked lately 

 1-| hours (broken by tea by myself) with my nephew, and I 

 was [ill] half the night. It is a fearful evil for self and 

 family." 



1868. '. . . I am a withered leaf for every subject except 

 Science. It sometimes makes me hate Science, though God 



• Life and Letters, i. 79. "^ Oct. 1-3. Life and Letters, ii. 139. 



3 Feb. 4. Ibid., ii. 360. * Jan. 3. Ibid., iii. 5. 



