THE MAN WITH THE MICROSCOPE 
121 
port he would hurry ashore and clamber over the moun¬ 
tains with his hammer to learn by the sound what kind 
of stones they were, and what part they had played in 
the record of the rocks. 
As he grew older Darwin became an invalid; he 
suffered very much, but he did not let his suffering in¬ 
terfere with his work. He wrote books about the facts 
he learned from nature; never satisfied to be told that 
something was true, he had to experiment and find out 
for himself. All our natural acts had for him a mean¬ 
ing, he wanted to know why we blush when we are em¬ 
barrassed, why we start when we are frightened. One 
day at the “Zoo” he put his face close to the thick plate 
glass in front of a puff adder, having first decided that 
he would not start back if the snake struck at him, but 
as soon as the blow was struck he forgot all about his 
intentions and jumped backwards a yard or two as 
quickly as possible; he knew then that sudden fear is 
stronger than a man’s mind. 
By the time Darwin’s beard was grey he was known 
over half the world, and like all great men, he had his 
enemies as well as his friends. He died in 1882, and if 
•you want to know what he learned from all his study 
you can read it from his own books when you go to 
High School, because although he was so learned, his 
