38o 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



ventured on my lecturing tour in America, in which case I 

 should not have written " Darwinism," and, I firmly believe, 

 should not have enjoyed such good health as I am now doing. 

 Then, too, I should probably not have accepted Dr. Lunn's 

 invitation to lecture at Davos, and my two later books would 

 never have come into existence. 



Of course this is all conjecture, but it seems to myself 

 highly probable. At all events, I feel perfectly sure that 

 without the spur of necessity I should not have done much 

 of the work I have done. I have always had a great desire 

 to see many of the beauty-spots of the world. Some of them 

 I have seen, but usually under strict limitation of time and 

 means. I have longed to visit the old volcanoes of Mont 

 Dore or the Eifel, both for their geology and their rich 

 flora ; the Dolomites and the Italian lakes ; Pompei, and 

 Rome, and the lovely Riviera ; Sicily and Greece ; while 

 the little I have seen of Switzerland has made me wish to 

 see more. If I had had the means I should probably have 

 spent a good part of each winter, spring, or summer, in these 

 countries, and should have found such constant delight in 

 them, and in my garden at home, to which I should have 

 brought home every year new floral treasures, that I should 

 not have felt the want of any other occupation, and should 

 probably have written nothing but an occasional review or 

 magazine article. If, therefore, my books and essays have 

 been of any use to the world — and though I cannot quite 

 understand it, scores of people have written to me telling me 

 so — then the losses and the struggles I have had to go 

 through have been a necessary discipline calculated to bring 

 into action whatever faculties I possess. I may be allowed 

 here to give an extract from one of these letters on my 

 literary work, nearly the last I received from my lamented 

 friend F. W. H. Myers. He writes (April 12, 1898) : — 



" I am glad to take this opportunity of telling you some- 

 thing about my relation to one of your books. I write now 

 from bed, having had severe influenzic pneumonia, now going 

 off. For some days my temperature was 105°, and I was very 

 restless at night — anxious to read, but in too sensitive and 



