224 THE DARWINIAN THEORY 



" I had," he says, " during many years followed a 

 golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, 

 a new observation or thought came across me, which 

 was opposed to my general results, to make a 

 memorandum of it without fail and at once ; for I 

 had found by experience that such facts and thoughts 

 were far more apt to escape from the memory than 

 favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few 

 objections were raised against my views (' Origin of 

 Species ') which I had not at least noticed and 

 attempted to answer." 



" I gained much by my delay in publishing, from 

 about 1839, when the theory was clearly conceived, 

 to 1859 ; and I lost nothing by it." 



Personal Characteristics. 



Darwin was about six feet high, of active habit, 

 but with no natural grace or neatness of movement. 

 He was awkward with his hands, and unable to 

 draw at all well. He had a full beard and grey 

 eyes, overhung by extraordinarily prominent and 

 bushy eyebrows. In manner, he was bright, ani- 

 mated, and cheerful ; a delightfully considerate host ; 

 a man of natural and never-failing courtesy — leading 

 him to reply at length to letters from anybody, and 

 sometimes of a most foolish kind. He was fond of 

 animals, and had a great power of stealing the 

 affections of other people's pets. 



His private life was burdened by almost constant 

 illness, which rendered him incapable of work for 

 weeks, or even months at a time ; and in later years 



