Charles Darwin. 459 



current set quicker and stronger than he could have expected, 

 he seems to have taken up with fresh delight studies which he 

 had marked out in early years, or topics which from time to 

 time had struck his acute attention. To these he gave himself, 

 quite to the last, with all the spirit and curiosity of youth. 

 Evidently all this amount of work was done for the pure love 

 of it; it was all done methodically, with clear and definite aim, 

 without haste, but without intermission. 



It would confidently be supposed that in this case genius 

 and industry were seconded by leisure and bodily vigor. For- 

 tunately Darwin's means enabled him to control the disposition 

 of his time. But the voyage of the Beagle, which was so 

 advantageous to science, ruined his health. A sort of chronic 

 sea-sickness, under which all his work abroad was performed, 

 harassed him ever afterwards. The days in which he could give 

 two hours to investigation or writing were counted as good ones, 

 and for much of his life even these were largely outnumbered 

 by days in which nothing could be attempted. Only by great 

 care and the simplest habits was he able to secure even a mod- 

 erate amount of comfortable existence. But in this respect his 

 later years were the best ones, and therefore the busiest In 

 them also he had most valuable filial aid. There was nothing 

 to cause much anxiety until his seventy-third birthday had 

 passed, or to excite alarm until the week before his death. 



certainly no naturalist, ever made an impression at once so 

 deep, so wide, and so immediate. The name of Linnaeus might 

 suggest comparison; but readers and pupils of Linnaeus over a 

 century ago were to those of Darwin as tens are to thousands, 

 and the scientific as well as the popular interest of the subjects 

 considered were somewhat in the same ratio. Humboldt, who, 

 like Darwin, began with research in travel, and to whom the 

 longest of lives, vigorous health, and the best opportunities 

 were allotted, essayed similar themes in a more ambitious spirit, 

 enjoyed equal or greater renown, but made no deep impression 

 upon the thought of his own day or of ours. As one criterion 

 of celebrity, it may be noted that no other author we know of 

 • ever gave rise in his own active lifetime to a special depart- 

 ment of bibliography. Dante-literature and Shakcspeare-litera- 



