01 - Preface

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.840 --> 00:00:06.280
Section one of the Autobiography of Charles Darwin. This is
2
00:00:06.280 --> 00:00:10.640
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
3
00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:16.120
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
4
00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:22.239
Recording by Adam Marcitich Alexandria, Virginia, June two thousand and nine.
5
00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:28.440
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, edited by his son Francis Darwin.
6
00:00:30.399 --> 00:00:32.359
Section one Preface.
7
00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:38.320
My father's autobiographical recollections given in the present chapter were
8
00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:41.560
written for his children, and written without any thought that
9
00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:46.039
they would ever be published. Many this may seem an impossibility,
10
00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:49.479
but those whom my father will understand how it was
11
00:00:49.520 --> 00:00:54.039
not only possible but natural. The autobiography bears the heading
12
00:00:54.479 --> 00:00:59.000
Recollections of the development of my mind and character, and
13
00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:03.719
end with the follow note August three, eighteen seventy six.
14
00:01:04.599 --> 00:01:07.640
This sketch of my life was begun about May twenty
15
00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:12.840
eighth at Hope Dee, mister Hensley Wedgewood House in sir
16
00:01:14.120 --> 00:01:16.599
and since then I have written for nearly an hour
17
00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:21.599
on most afternoon. Will easily be understood that in a
18
00:01:21.719 --> 00:01:25.040
narrative of a personal and intimate kind, written for his
19
00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:30.599
wife and children, passages should occur which must here be omitted,
20
00:01:31.319 --> 00:01:34.400
and I have not thought it necessary to indicate where
21
00:01:34.439 --> 00:01:38.000
such a missions are made. It has been found necessary
22
00:01:38.040 --> 00:01:42.719
to make few corrections of obvious verbal slips, but the
23
00:01:42.799 --> 00:01:46.560
number of such alterations has been kept down to the minimum.
24
00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:53.560
Francis Darling preface, a German editor having written to me
25
00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:56.239
for an account of the development of my mind and
26
00:01:56.400 --> 00:02:00.599
character with some sketch of my autobiography. I've thought that
27
00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:04.040
the attempt would amuse me and might possibly interest my
28
00:02:04.159 --> 00:02:07.120
children or their children. I know that it would have
29
00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:10.439
interested me greatly to have read, even so short and
30
00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:14.080
dull a sketch of the mind of my grandfather written
31
00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:17.360
by himself, and what he thought and did and how
32
00:02:17.400 --> 00:02:20.800
he worked. I have attempted to write the following account
33
00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:23.439
of myself as if I were a dead man in
34
00:02:23.479 --> 00:02:27.280
another world looking back at my own life. Nor have
35
00:02:27.400 --> 00:02:30.400
I found this difficult, for life is nearly over with me.
36
00:02:31.199 --> 00:02:34.960
I've taken no pains about my style of writing. I
37
00:02:35.039 --> 00:02:38.680
was born at Shrewsbury on February twelfth, eighteen oh nine,
38
00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:42.240
and my earliest recollection goes back only to when I
39
00:02:42.280 --> 00:02:45.919
was a few months four years old, when we went
40
00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:51.280
near Abergel for sea baby, and I recollect some events
41
00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:57.000
and places there with some little distinctness. My mother died
42
00:02:57.240 --> 00:03:01.759
in July eighteen seventeen, when I was a little over
43
00:03:01.879 --> 00:03:04.680
eight years old, and it is odd that I can
44
00:03:04.719 --> 00:03:08.919
remember hardly anything about her except her deathbed, her black
45
00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:13.560
velvet gown, and her curiously constructed work table. In the
46
00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:16.280
spring of the same year I was sent to a
47
00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:20.039
day school in Shrewsbury, where I stayed a year. I
48
00:03:20.039 --> 00:03:22.680
had been told that I was much slower in learning
49
00:03:22.759 --> 00:03:26.479
than my younger sister Catherine, and I believe that I
50
00:03:26.680 --> 00:03:30.400
was in many ways a naughty boy by the time
51
00:03:30.439 --> 00:03:33.719
I went to this day school, kept by Reverend G
52
00:03:34.039 --> 00:03:38.479
case minister of the Unitarian chapel in the High Street.
53
00:03:39.560 --> 00:03:43.639
Missus Darwin was a Unitarian and attended mister Casey's chapel,
54
00:03:44.280 --> 00:03:46.879
and my father was a little boy went there with
55
00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:50.479
his elder sisters. But both he and his brother were
56
00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:53.800
christened and intended to belong to the Church of England,
57
00:03:54.439 --> 00:03:58.000
and after his early boyhood he seems usually to have
58
00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:03.400
gone a church and not to miss thecases. It appears
59
00:04:03.439 --> 00:04:08.199
Saint James Gazette, December fifteenth, eighteen eighty three that a
60
00:04:08.280 --> 00:04:11.439
mural tablet has been erected to his memory in the
61
00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:16.839
chapel which is known as the Free Christian Church. My
62
00:04:16.920 --> 00:04:21.920
taste for natural history, and more especially for collecting, was
63
00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:25.879
well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants.
64
00:04:26.439 --> 00:04:30.079
Reverend W. A. Layton, who is a schoolfellow of my
65
00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:34.560
father's at mister Case's school, remembers his bringing a flower
66
00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:37.199
to school and saying that his mother had taught him
67
00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:40.839
how by looking at the inside of the blossom, the
68
00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:44.879
name of the plant could be discovered. Mister Layton goes
69
00:04:44.920 --> 00:04:49.319
on has greatly roused my attention and curiosity, and I
70
00:04:49.439 --> 00:04:53.959
inquired of him repeatedly how this could be done, but
71
00:04:54.079 --> 00:05:00.480
his lesson was, naturally enough not transmissive. Francis Darwin and
72
00:05:00.519 --> 00:05:06.560
I collected all sorts of things, shells, seals, franks, coins
73
00:05:06.600 --> 00:05:10.319
and minerals. The passion for collecting, which leads a man
74
00:05:10.399 --> 00:05:15.160
to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso or a miser,
75
00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:19.319
was very strong in me, and was clearly inache, as
76
00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:23.639
none of my sister or brother even had this taste.
77
00:05:23.879 --> 00:05:27.439
One little event during this year has fixed itself very
78
00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:30.240
firmly in my mind, and I hope that it has
79
00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:34.480
done so from my conscience, having been afterwards sorely troubled
80
00:05:34.480 --> 00:05:38.480
by it. It is curious is showing that apparently I
81
00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:42.720
was interested at this early age in the variability of plants.
82
00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:46.439
I told him another little boy, I believe it was Latent,
83
00:05:46.720 --> 00:05:51.399
who afterwards became a well known micanologist and botanist, that
84
00:05:51.519 --> 00:05:56.959
I could produce variously colored polyanthasis and primroses by watering
85
00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:00.519
them with certain colored fluids, which was a course of
86
00:06:00.680 --> 00:06:04.519
monstrous failing and had never been tried by me. I
87
00:06:04.600 --> 00:06:07.920
may here also confess that as a little boy I
88
00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:11.959
was much given to inventing deliberate falsehoods, and this was
89
00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:15.959
always done for the sake of causing excitement. For instance,
90
00:06:16.360 --> 00:06:20.240
I once gathered much valuable fruit from my father's trees
91
00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:23.120
and hid it in the shrubbery, and then ran, in
92
00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:26.480
breathless haste to spread the news that I had discovered
93
00:06:26.519 --> 00:06:30.279
a horde of stolen fruit. I must have been a
94
00:06:30.439 --> 00:06:33.800
very simple little fellow. When I first went to the school.
95
00:06:34.839 --> 00:06:37.480
A boy of the name of Garnett took me into
96
00:06:37.480 --> 00:06:41.199
a cake shop one day and bought some cakes, for
97
00:06:41.240 --> 00:06:44.600
which he did not pay, as the shopman trusted him.
98
00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:47.360
When we came out, I asked him why he did
99
00:06:47.399 --> 00:06:51.000
not pay for them, and he instantly answered, why do
100
00:06:51.079 --> 00:06:53.600
you not know that my uncle left a great sum
101
00:06:53.639 --> 00:06:58.079
of money to the town on condition that every tradesman
102
00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:02.800
should give whatever was wanted without payment, to anyone who
103
00:07:02.839 --> 00:07:06.360
wore his old hat and moved it in a particular manner,
104
00:07:07.879 --> 00:07:10.920
and he then showed me how it was moved. He
105
00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:14.160
then went into another shop where he was trusted and
106
00:07:14.279 --> 00:07:17.199
asked for some small article, moving his hat in the
107
00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:21.439
proper manner, and of course obtained it without payment. When
108
00:07:21.439 --> 00:07:24.120
we came out, he said, now, if you'd like to
109
00:07:24.160 --> 00:07:27.240
go by yourself into that cake shop, how well I
110
00:07:27.319 --> 00:07:31.279
remember its exact position. I will lend you my hat,
111
00:07:31.519 --> 00:07:34.040
and you can get whatever you like if you move
112
00:07:34.079 --> 00:07:37.680
the hat on your head properly. I gladly accepted the
113
00:07:37.720 --> 00:07:41.480
generous offer and went in and asked for some cakes,
114
00:07:42.040 --> 00:07:44.439
moved the old hat, and was walking out of the
115
00:07:44.480 --> 00:07:47.040
shop when the shop man made a ruse at me.
116
00:07:47.839 --> 00:07:50.439
So I dropped the cakes and ran for dear wife,
117
00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:54.279
and was astonished by being greeted with shouts of laughter
118
00:07:54.399 --> 00:07:58.560
by my false friend Garnet. I can say in my
119
00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:02.199
own favor that I was as a boy humane, but
120
00:08:02.279 --> 00:08:05.399
I owed this entirely to the instruction and example of
121
00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:09.759
my sisters. I doubt, indeed, whether humanity is a natural
122
00:08:09.879 --> 00:08:14.040
or inequality. I was very fond of collecting eggs, but
123
00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:16.560
I never took more than a single egg out of
124
00:08:16.600 --> 00:08:20.399
a bird's nest, except on one single occasion, when I
125
00:08:20.439 --> 00:08:23.800
took all not for their value, but from a sort
126
00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:27.920
of bravado. I had a strong taste for angling, and
127
00:08:27.959 --> 00:08:30.560
would sit for any number of hours on the bank
128
00:08:30.680 --> 00:08:34.240
of a river or pond watching the float. When at
129
00:08:34.279 --> 00:08:38.919
mayor the house of his uncle Josiah Wedgewood, I was
130
00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:41.559
told that I could kill the worms with salt and water,
131
00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:45.000
and from that day I never spitted a living worm,
132
00:08:45.360 --> 00:08:51.159
though at the expense probably of some loss of success. Once,
133
00:08:51.279 --> 00:08:54.440
as a very little boy, whilst at the day school,
134
00:08:54.919 --> 00:08:58.279
or before that time, I acted cruelly, for I beat
135
00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:02.000
a puppy, I believe simply from enjoying the sense of power.
136
00:09:02.919 --> 00:09:05.480
But the beating could not have been severe, for the
137
00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:09.080
puppy did not howl, of which I feel sure, as
138
00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:12.360
the spot was near the house. The act lay heavily
139
00:09:12.440 --> 00:09:15.919
on my conscience, as is shown by my remembering the
140
00:09:16.039 --> 00:09:20.200
exact spot where the crime was committed. It probably lay
141
00:09:20.519 --> 00:09:23.840
all the heavier for my love of dogs being then
142
00:09:24.080 --> 00:09:28.039
and for a long time afterwards. A passion dog seemed
143
00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:31.080
to know this, for I was an adept in robbing
144
00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:35.639
their love from their masters. I remember clearly one other
145
00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:39.799
incident during this year while at mister Case's daily school,
146
00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:44.799
namely the burial of a dragoon soldier, and it is
147
00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:48.320
surprising how clearly I can still see the horse with
148
00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:52.279
the man's empty boots and carbine suspended to the saddle,
149
00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:56.639
and the firing over the grave. This sceneed deeply stirred
150
00:09:56.679 --> 00:10:00.960
whatever poetic fancy there was in me. In the summer
151
00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:05.240
of eighteen eighteen I went to Doctor Butler's Great School
152
00:10:05.320 --> 00:10:10.240
in Shrewsbury and remained there for seven years still Midsummer
153
00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:15.480
eighteen twenty five, when I was sixteen years old, I
154
00:10:15.559 --> 00:10:19.120
boarded at this school, so that I had the great
155
00:10:19.159 --> 00:10:22.360
advantage of living the life of a true school board
156
00:10:23.080 --> 00:10:25.679
But as the distance was hardly more than a mile
157
00:10:25.720 --> 00:10:28.679
to my home, I very often ran there in the
158
00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:32.879
longer intervals between the callings over and before locking up
159
00:10:32.879 --> 00:10:37.279
at night. This, I think was in many ways advantageous
160
00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:41.440
to me by keeping up home affections and interests. I
161
00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:44.200
remember in the early part of my school life that
162
00:10:44.279 --> 00:10:46.840
I often had to run very quickly to be in time,
163
00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:52.120
and from being a fleet runner was generally successful. But
164
00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:55.039
when in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help me,
165
00:10:55.919 --> 00:10:59.000
and I well remember that I attributed my success to
166
00:10:59.039 --> 00:11:02.840
the prayers and not to my quick running, and marveled
167
00:11:02.879 --> 00:11:07.240
how generally I was aided. I have heard my father
168
00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:10.440
and elder sisters say that I had, as a very
169
00:11:10.480 --> 00:11:15.279
young boy, a strong taste for long solitary walks. But
170
00:11:15.399 --> 00:11:19.159
what I thought about I knew not. I often became
171
00:11:19.279 --> 00:11:23.480
quite absorbed, and once, while returning to school, on the
172
00:11:23.519 --> 00:11:28.080
summit of the old fortifications round Shrewsbury, which had been
173
00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:32.519
converted into a public footpath with no parapet on one side,
174
00:11:33.159 --> 00:11:36.039
I walked off and fell to the ground, but the
175
00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:40.399
height was only seven or eight feet. Nevertheless, the number
176
00:11:40.440 --> 00:11:44.799
of thoughts which passed through my mind during this very short,
177
00:11:45.039 --> 00:11:51.200
but sudden and wholly unexpected fall was astonishing and seem
178
00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:56.720
hardly compatible with what physiologists have I believe proved about
179
00:11:56.759 --> 00:12:01.519
each thought requiring quite an appreciable amount of time. Nothing
180
00:12:01.519 --> 00:12:03.960
could have been worse for the development of my mind
181
00:12:04.039 --> 00:12:08.600
than Doctor Butler's School, as it was strictly classical, nothing
182
00:12:08.639 --> 00:12:12.639
else being taught except a little ancient geography and history.
183
00:12:13.519 --> 00:12:16.240
The school as a means of education to me was
184
00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:19.919
simply a blank. During my whole life, I have been
185
00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:25.240
singularly incapable of mastering any language. A special attention was
186
00:12:25.279 --> 00:12:28.519
paid to verse making, and this I could never do well.
187
00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:32.360
I had many friends and got together a good collection
188
00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:36.919
of old verses, which, by patching together, sometimes aided by
189
00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:41.360
other boys, I could work into any subject. Much attention
190
00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:44.080
was paid to learning by heart the lessons of the
191
00:12:44.120 --> 00:12:48.799
previous day. This I could effect with great facility, learning
192
00:12:48.919 --> 00:12:52.600
forty or fifty lines of Virgil or Homer while I
193
00:12:52.759 --> 00:12:57.600
was in warning the chapel. But this exercise was utterly useless,
194
00:12:57.960 --> 00:13:02.120
for every verse was forgotten in forty eight hours. I
195
00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:07.080
was not idle, and with the exception of versification, generally
196
00:13:07.159 --> 00:13:12.639
worked conscientiously at my classics, not using cribs. The sole
197
00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:16.440
pleasure I ever received from such studies was from some
198
00:13:16.519 --> 00:13:20.879
of the odes of Horrors, which I admired greatly. When
199
00:13:20.879 --> 00:13:23.759
I left the school, I was, for my age neither
200
00:13:23.879 --> 00:13:26.679
high nor low in it, and I believe that I
201
00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:30.759
was considered by all my masters and my father as
202
00:13:30.799 --> 00:13:36.840
a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard and intellect.
203
00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:41.159
So my deep mortification. My father once said to me,
204
00:13:41.799 --> 00:13:46.039
you care for nothing but shooting dogs and rat catching,
205
00:13:46.440 --> 00:13:49.559
and you will be a disgrace to yourself and of
206
00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:54.240
all your family. But my father, who was the kindest
207
00:13:54.279 --> 00:13:57.039
man I ever knew, and whose memory I loved with
208
00:13:57.120 --> 00:14:00.600
all my heart, must have been angry and somewhat unjust
209
00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:05.039
when he used such words. Looking back as well as
210
00:14:05.080 --> 00:14:08.360
I can at my character during my school life, the
211
00:14:08.399 --> 00:14:12.039
only qualities which at this period promised well for the
212
00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:17.080
future were that I had strong and diversified tastes, much
213
00:14:17.320 --> 00:14:21.559
zealed for whatever interested me, and a keen pleasure in
214
00:14:21.720 --> 00:14:26.799
understanding any complex subject or thing. I was taught euclid
215
00:14:26.840 --> 00:14:30.840
by a private tutor, and I distinctly remembered the intense
216
00:14:30.919 --> 00:14:35.840
satisfaction which the clear geometrical proofs gave me. I remember
217
00:14:36.200 --> 00:14:40.080
with equal distinctness the delight which my uncle gave me,
218
00:14:40.840 --> 00:14:46.000
the father of Francis Galton, by explaining the principle of
219
00:14:46.080 --> 00:14:50.960
the vernier of a barometer with respect to diversified tastes
220
00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:55.080
independently of science. I was fond of reading various books,
221
00:14:55.440 --> 00:14:58.360
and I used to sit for hours reading the historical
222
00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:02.480
plays of Shakespeare, generally in an old window in the
223
00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:06.919
thick walls of the school. I read also other poetry,
224
00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:11.799
such as Thompson's Seasons and the recently published poems of
225
00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:15.960
Byron and Scott. I mentioned this because later in life
226
00:15:16.399 --> 00:15:20.480
I wholly lost, to my great regret, all pleasure from
227
00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:26.559
poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare. In connection with pleasure
228
00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:30.320
from poetry, I may add that in eighteen twenty two
229
00:15:30.879 --> 00:15:34.159
a vivid delight and scenery was first awakened in my
230
00:15:34.279 --> 00:15:37.879
mind during a writing tour on the borders of Wales,
231
00:15:38.440 --> 00:15:41.799
and this has lasted longer than any other esthetic pleasure.
232
00:15:43.080 --> 00:15:45.799
Early in my school days a boy had a copy
233
00:15:45.879 --> 00:15:49.919
of The Wonders of the World, which I often read
234
00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:53.279
and disputed with other boys about the veracity of some
235
00:15:53.440 --> 00:15:57.000
of the statements. And I believed that this book first
236
00:15:57.080 --> 00:16:00.519
gave me a wish to travel in remote countries, which
237
00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:04.759
was ultimately fulfilled in the Voyage of the Beagle. In
238
00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:08.200
the latter part of my school life, I became passionately
239
00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:12.080
fond of shooting. I do not believe that any one
240
00:16:12.159 --> 00:16:15.639
could have shown more zeal for the most honed cause
241
00:16:16.120 --> 00:16:20.039
than I did for shooting birds. How well I remember
242
00:16:20.120 --> 00:16:23.879
killing my first knife, and my excitement was so great
243
00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:27.240
that I had much difficulty in reloading my gun from
244
00:16:27.279 --> 00:16:32.039
the trembling of my hand. This taste long continued, and
245
00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:36.320
I became a very good shot. When at Cambridge, I
246
00:16:36.440 --> 00:16:39.480
used to practice throwing up my gun to my shoulder
247
00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:42.799
before a looking glass to see that I threw it
248
00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:46.440
up straight. Another and better plan was to get a
249
00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:49.360
friend to wave about a lighted candle and then to
250
00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:51.960
fire at it with a cap on the nipple, and
251
00:16:52.039 --> 00:16:54.799
if the aim was accurate, the little puff of air
252
00:16:54.840 --> 00:16:58.360
would blow off the candle. The explosion of the cap
253
00:16:58.519 --> 00:17:01.720
caused a sharp crack, and I was told that the
254
00:17:01.799 --> 00:17:05.960
tutor of the college remarked, what an extraordinary thing it is.
255
00:17:06.279 --> 00:17:09.799
Mister Darwin seems to spend hours in cracking a horse
256
00:17:09.839 --> 00:17:12.920
whip in his room, for I often hear the crack
257
00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:17.599
when I pass under his windows. I had many friends
258
00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:21.680
amongst the schoolboys, whom I loved dearly, and I think
259
00:17:21.759 --> 00:17:27.079
that my disposition was then very affectionate with respect to science.
260
00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:32.559
I continued collecting minerals with much zeal, but quite unscientifically.
261
00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:37.119
All that I cared about was a new named mineral,
262
00:17:37.559 --> 00:17:41.000
and I hardly attempted to classify them. I must have
263
00:17:41.119 --> 00:17:45.119
observed insects with some little care, for when ten years
264
00:17:45.160 --> 00:17:49.680
old in eighteen nineteen, I went for three weeks to
265
00:17:49.839 --> 00:17:53.960
ploss Edwards on the sea coast in Wales. I was
266
00:17:54.160 --> 00:17:58.640
very much interested and surprised at seeing a large black
267
00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:06.480
and scarlet heemiptuous insect, many moths Zygaina, and a sicindela,
268
00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:10.880
which are not found in Shropshire. I almost made up
269
00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:13.880
my mind to begin collecting all the insects which I
270
00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:18.680
could find dead, for on consulting my sister, I concluded
271
00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:20.920
that it was not right to kill insects for the
272
00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:26.319
sake of making a collection. From reading White's Selborne, I
273
00:18:26.359 --> 00:18:29.920
took much pleasure in watching the habits of birds, and
274
00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:33.759
even made notes on the subject. In my simplicity, I
275
00:18:33.799 --> 00:18:40.039
remember wondering why every gentleman did not becomeing ornithologist. Towards
276
00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:43.079
the clothes of my school life, my brother worked hard
277
00:18:43.119 --> 00:18:47.640
at chemistry and made a fair laboratory with proper apparatus
278
00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:50.559
in the tool house in the garden, and I was
279
00:18:50.599 --> 00:18:53.079
allowed to aid him as a servant in most of
280
00:18:53.119 --> 00:18:57.359
his experiments. He made all the gases and many compounds,
281
00:18:57.839 --> 00:19:01.200
and I read with great care several books on chemistry,
282
00:19:01.799 --> 00:19:07.359
such as Henry and Park's Chemical Catechism. The subject interested
283
00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:10.960
me greatly, and we often used to go on working
284
00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:14.759
till rather late at night. This was the best part
285
00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:18.359
of my education at school, for it showed me practically
286
00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:23.119
a meaning of experimental science. The fact that we worked
287
00:19:23.119 --> 00:19:27.240
at chemistry somehow got known at school, and as it
288
00:19:27.319 --> 00:19:32.599
was an unprecedented fact, I was nicknamed Gas. I was
289
00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:37.759
also once publicly rebuked by the headmaster, doctor Butler, for
290
00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:41.960
thus wasting my time on such useless subjects, and he
291
00:19:42.039 --> 00:19:47.920
called me very unjustly a poco curante, and as I
292
00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:51.240
did not understand what he meant, it seemed to me
293
00:19:51.319 --> 00:19:56.480
a fearful reproach. As I was doing no good at school,
294
00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:00.599
my father wisely took me away at a rather earlier
295
00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:05.119
age than usual and sent me October eighteen twenty five
296
00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:10.480
to Edinburgh University with my brother, where I stayed for
297
00:20:10.519 --> 00:20:15.359
two years per sessions. My brother was completing his medical studies,
298
00:20:15.759 --> 00:20:19.200
though I did not believe he ever really intended to practice,
299
00:20:19.599 --> 00:20:22.759
and I was sent there to commence them. But soon
300
00:20:22.799 --> 00:20:28.079
after this period I became convinced, from various small circumstances,
301
00:20:28.759 --> 00:20:31.920
that my father would leave me property enough to subsist
302
00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:35.680
on with some comfort. Though I never imagined that I
303
00:20:35.720 --> 00:20:38.720
should be so rich a man as I am, but
304
00:20:38.759 --> 00:20:42.680
my belief was sufficient to check any strenuous efforts to
305
00:20:42.759 --> 00:20:48.480
learn medicine. The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures,
306
00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:53.079
and these were intolerably dull, with the exception of those
307
00:20:53.240 --> 00:20:57.000
on chemistry by Hope. But to my mind there are
308
00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:01.519
no advantages and many disadvantages in laures compared with reading
309
00:21:02.440 --> 00:21:07.559
Doctor Duncan's lectures on Materia medica at eight o'clock on
310
00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:13.640
a winter's morning, are something fearful to remember. Doctor Blank
311
00:21:14.279 --> 00:21:18.000
made his lectures on human anatomy as dull as he
312
00:21:18.079 --> 00:21:22.960
was himself, and the subject disgusted me. It has proved
313
00:21:23.039 --> 00:21:26.079
one of the greatest evils in my life that I
314
00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:30.440
was not urged to practice dissection, for I should soon
315
00:21:30.519 --> 00:21:34.200
have got over my disgust, and the practice would have
316
00:21:34.279 --> 00:21:38.640
been invaluable for all my future work. This has been
317
00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:43.480
an irremediable evil. As well as my incapacity to draw.
318
00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:48.519
I also attended regularly the clinical wards in the hospital.
319
00:21:49.319 --> 00:21:52.440
Some of the cases distressed me a good deal, and
320
00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:57.000
I still have vivid pictures before me of some of them.
321
00:21:58.160 --> 00:22:00.960
But I was not so foolish as to allow this
322
00:22:01.119 --> 00:22:05.880
to lessen my attendants. I cannot understand why this part
323
00:22:05.920 --> 00:22:08.759
of my medical course did not interest me in a
324
00:22:08.799 --> 00:22:13.160
greater degree. For during a summer before coming to Edinburgh,
325
00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:17.440
I began attending some of the poor people, chiefly children
326
00:22:17.640 --> 00:22:21.319
and women in Shrewsburg. I wrote down as full an
327
00:22:21.359 --> 00:22:25.119
account as I could of the case with all the symptoms,
328
00:22:25.720 --> 00:22:29.200
and read them aloud to my father, who suggested further
329
00:22:29.319 --> 00:22:33.799
inquiries and advised me what medicines to give, which I
330
00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:37.559
made up myself. At one time I had at least
331
00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:40.839
a dozen patients, and I felt a keen interest in
332
00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:44.480
the work. My father, who was by far the best
333
00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:47.960
judge of character whom I ever knew, declared that I
334
00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.400
should make a successful physician, meaning by this one who
335
00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:56.680
would get many patients. He maintained that the chief element
336
00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:01.839
of success was exciting confidence. But what he saw in
337
00:23:01.880 --> 00:23:05.839
me which convinced him that I should create confidence I
338
00:23:05.960 --> 00:23:10.759
knew not. I also attended on two occasions the operating
339
00:23:10.839 --> 00:23:15.079
theater in the hospital at Edinburgh, and saw two very
340
00:23:15.119 --> 00:23:19.799
bad operations, one on a child, but I rushed away
341
00:23:20.039 --> 00:23:23.839
before they were completed. Nor did I ever attend again,
342
00:23:24.440 --> 00:23:27.680
for hardly any inducement would have been strong enough to
343
00:23:27.759 --> 00:23:31.680
make me do so, this being long before the blessed
344
00:23:31.759 --> 00:23:36.640
days of chloroform. The two cases fairly haunted me for
345
00:23:36.759 --> 00:23:41.559
many a long year. My brother stayed only one year
346
00:23:41.599 --> 00:23:45.000
at the university, so that during the second year I
347
00:23:45.119 --> 00:23:48.279
was left to my own resources, and this was an
348
00:23:48.279 --> 00:23:52.319
advantage for I became well acquainted with several young men
349
00:23:52.599 --> 00:23:57.079
fond of natural science. One of these was Ainsworth, who
350
00:23:57.119 --> 00:24:01.440
afterwards published his travels in a Syria. He was a
351
00:24:01.480 --> 00:24:07.400
Wernerian geologist and knew a little about many subjects. Doctor
352
00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:13.279
Coldstream was a very different young man, prim formal, highly religious,
353
00:24:13.920 --> 00:24:20.079
and most kind hearted. He afterwards published some good zoological articles.
354
00:24:20.559 --> 00:24:24.279
A third young man was Hardy, who would I think
355
00:24:24.880 --> 00:24:30.000
have made a good botanist, but died early in India. Lastly,
356
00:24:30.519 --> 00:24:35.000
doctor Grant, my senior by several years. But how I
357
00:24:35.119 --> 00:24:39.599
became acquainted with him. I cannot remember he published some
358
00:24:39.720 --> 00:24:44.240
first rade zoological papers, but after coming to London as
359
00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:49.160
professor in University College, he did nothing more in science,
360
00:24:49.839 --> 00:24:53.720
a fact which has always been inexplicable to me. I
361
00:24:53.799 --> 00:24:57.319
knew him well. He was dry and formal in manner,
362
00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:03.920
with munch enthusiasm beneath his outer crust. He one day,
363
00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:08.880
when we were walking together, burst forth in high admiration
364
00:25:09.039 --> 00:25:12.920
of Lamarck and his views on evolution. I listened in
365
00:25:13.039 --> 00:25:17.039
silent astonishment, and, as far as I can judge, without
366
00:25:17.079 --> 00:25:21.599
any effect on my mind, I had previously read The
367
00:25:21.799 --> 00:25:26.759
Zoonomia of my grandfather, in which similar views are maintained,
368
00:25:27.640 --> 00:25:32.039
but without producing any effect on me. Nevertheless, it is
369
00:25:32.119 --> 00:25:36.279
probable that the hearing, rather early in life such views
370
00:25:37.160 --> 00:25:41.559
maintained and praised, may have favored my upholding them in
371
00:25:41.599 --> 00:25:46.200
a different form in my Origin of Species. At this
372
00:25:46.359 --> 00:25:50.319
time I admired greatly the Zoonomia, but on reading it
373
00:25:50.359 --> 00:25:54.240
a second time, after an interval of ten or fifteen years,
374
00:25:54.759 --> 00:25:59.559
I was much disappointed, the proposition of speculation being so
375
00:25:59.759 --> 00:26:05.119
large to the fact skiving doctors Grant and Coldstream attended
376
00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:09.279
much to marine zoology and I often accompanied the former
377
00:26:09.400 --> 00:26:13.200
to collect animals in the tidal pools, which I dissected
378
00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:16.519
as well as I could. I also became friends with
379
00:26:16.559 --> 00:26:20.240
some of the New Haven fishermen and sometimes accompanied them
380
00:26:20.240 --> 00:26:23.839
when they tried for oysters, and thus got many specimens.
381
00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:28.160
But from not having had regular practice in dissection, and
382
00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:34.279
from possessing only a wretched microscope, my attempts were very poor. Nevertheless,
383
00:26:34.359 --> 00:26:38.279
I made one interesting little discovery, and read about the
384
00:26:38.279 --> 00:26:42.119
beginning of the year eighteen twenty six a short paper
385
00:26:42.160 --> 00:26:46.279
on the subject before the Plinian Society. This was what
386
00:26:46.440 --> 00:26:50.000
the so called ova of Flustra had the power of
387
00:26:50.160 --> 00:26:56.519
independent movement by means of ccilia, and were in fact larvae.
388
00:26:56.680 --> 00:26:59.960
In another short paper I showed that the little globul
389
00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:03.240
bodies which had been supposed to be the young state
390
00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:07.279
of Fucus laureus, with the egg cases of the wormlike
391
00:27:07.759 --> 00:27:14.359
Poncebtella murikida. The Plinian Society was encouraged and I believe
392
00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:19.680
founded by Professor Jameson. It consisted of students and met
393
00:27:19.720 --> 00:27:23.599
in an underground room in the university for the sake
394
00:27:23.680 --> 00:27:27.759
of reading papers on natural science and discussing them. I
395
00:27:27.880 --> 00:27:31.480
used regularly to attend, and the meetings had a good
396
00:27:31.480 --> 00:27:34.599
effect on me, in stimulating my zeal and giving me
397
00:27:34.759 --> 00:27:40.200
new congenial acquaintances. One evening, a poor young man got up, and,
398
00:27:40.279 --> 00:27:44.799
after stammering for a prodigious length of time, blushing crimson,
399
00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:49.680
he at last slowly got out the words, mister President,
400
00:27:50.279 --> 00:27:53.960
I have forgotten what I was going to say. The
401
00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:57.559
poor fellow looked quite overwhelmed, and all the members were
402
00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:00.240
so surprised that no one could think of a word
403
00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:03.920
to say to cover his confusion. The papers which were
404
00:28:03.920 --> 00:28:07.119
read to our little society were not printed, so that
405
00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:10.240
I had not the satisfaction of seeing my paper in print.
406
00:28:10.680 --> 00:28:13.680
But I believed doctor Grant noticed my small discovery in
407
00:28:13.759 --> 00:28:18.079
his excellent memoir on Fluster. I was also a member
408
00:28:18.119 --> 00:28:22.200
of the Royal Medical Society and attended pretty regularly, as
409
00:28:22.200 --> 00:28:25.920
the subjects were exclusively medical. I did not care much
410
00:28:25.960 --> 00:28:30.240
about much rubbish was talked there, but there were some
411
00:28:30.359 --> 00:28:36.000
good speakers, of whom the best was the President, Sir J. K. Shuttlewood.
412
00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:39.480
Doctor Grant took me occasionally to the meetings of the
413
00:28:39.599 --> 00:28:45.359
Veneerian Society, where various papers on natural history were read, discussed,
414
00:28:45.640 --> 00:28:50.440
and afterwards published in the transactions I heard Audubon delivered
415
00:28:50.480 --> 00:28:55.359
there some interesting discourses on the habits of North American birds,
416
00:28:55.400 --> 00:28:59.640
sneering somewhat unjustly at Warranton. By the way, a Negro
417
00:28:59.759 --> 00:29:03.960
lived in Edinburgh who had traveled with Waterton and gained
418
00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:08.279
his livelihood by stuffing birds, which he did excellently. He
419
00:29:08.359 --> 00:29:11.440
gave me lessons for payment, and I used often to
420
00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:14.039
sit with him, for he was a very pleasant and
421
00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:18.839
intelligent man. Doctor Leonard Horner also took me once to
422
00:29:18.920 --> 00:29:23.119
a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, where I
423
00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:26.839
saw Sir Walter Scott in the chair as president, and
424
00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:30.359
he apologized that the meeting is not feeling fitted for
425
00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:33.519
such a position. I looked at him in the whole
426
00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:36.920
scene with some awed reverence, and I think it was
427
00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:39.880
owing to this visit during my youth, and to my
428
00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:43.599
having attended the Royal Medical Society, that I felt the
429
00:29:43.599 --> 00:29:46.880
honor of being elected a few years ago an honorary
430
00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:51.599
member in both these societies more than any other similar honor.
431
00:29:52.440 --> 00:29:54.640
If I had been told at the time that I
432
00:29:54.640 --> 00:29:58.160
should one day have been thus honored, I declare that
433
00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:02.000
I should have thought it as ridicul and improbable, as
434
00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:05.119
if I had told that I should be elected King
435
00:30:05.200 --> 00:30:09.839
of England. During my second year at Edinburgh, I attended
436
00:30:10.119 --> 00:30:15.039
Doctor X's lectures on geology and zoology, but they were
437
00:30:15.079 --> 00:30:19.559
incredibly dull. The soul effect they produced sunny was a
438
00:30:19.599 --> 00:30:22.920
determination never as long as I lived, to read a
439
00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:26.680
book on geology or in any way studied the science.
440
00:30:27.640 --> 00:30:30.480
Yet I feel sure that I was prepared for a
441
00:30:30.519 --> 00:30:34.880
philosophical treatment of the subject. For an old doctor Cotton
442
00:30:34.960 --> 00:30:39.119
in Shropshire, who knew a good deal about rocks, had
443
00:30:39.119 --> 00:30:42.200
pointed out to me two or three years previously a
444
00:30:42.240 --> 00:30:46.160
well known, large erratic boulder in the town of Shrewsbury
445
00:30:46.319 --> 00:30:49.880
called the Belstone. He told me there was no rock
446
00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:53.839
of the same kind nearer than Cumberland or Scotland, and
447
00:30:53.880 --> 00:30:56.960
he solemnly assured me that the world would come to
448
00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:00.519
an end before anyone would be able to explain how
449
00:31:00.599 --> 00:31:04.599
this stone came where it now lay. This produced a
450
00:31:04.640 --> 00:31:09.920
deep impression on me, and I meditated over this wonderful stone,
451
00:31:10.119 --> 00:31:13.200
so that I felt the keenest delight when I first
452
00:31:13.279 --> 00:31:16.960
read of the action of icebergs in transporting boulders, and
453
00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:21.400
I gloried in the progress of geology. Equally striking is
454
00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:25.119
the fact that I, though not only sixty seven years old,
455
00:31:25.519 --> 00:31:29.480
heard the professor in a field lecture at Salisbury Craig's
456
00:31:30.400 --> 00:31:34.920
discoursing on a trapdyke with amigdaloidal regions and the strata
457
00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:39.559
indurated on each side, with volcanic rocks all around us
458
00:31:40.160 --> 00:31:43.160
say that it was a fissure filled with sediment from above,
459
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:46.839
adding with a sneer that there were men who maintained
460
00:31:47.200 --> 00:31:50.759
that it had been injected from beneath in a molten condition.
461
00:31:52.039 --> 00:31:54.680
When I think of this lecture, I do not wonder
462
00:31:54.720 --> 00:31:59.160
that I determined never to attend to geology. From attending
463
00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:03.240
doctor X's lectures, I became acquainted with the curator of
464
00:32:03.279 --> 00:32:08.759
the museum, mister Mcgillgravey, who afterwards published a large and
465
00:32:08.920 --> 00:32:12.480
excellent book on the birds of Scotland. I had much
466
00:32:12.519 --> 00:32:15.920
interesting natural history talk with him, and he was very
467
00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:19.359
kind to me. He gave me some rare shells for I,
468
00:32:19.519 --> 00:32:23.680
at the time collected marine mollusca, but with no great zeal.
469
00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:28.200
My summer vacations during these two years were wholly given
470
00:32:28.279 --> 00:32:31.400
up to amusements, though I always had some book in
471
00:32:31.480 --> 00:32:34.920
hand which I read with interest. During the summer of
472
00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:38.079
eighteen twenty six, I took a long walking tour with
473
00:32:38.119 --> 00:32:42.160
two friends with knapsacks on our backs through North Wales.
474
00:32:43.079 --> 00:32:46.440
We walked thirty miles most days, including one day the
475
00:32:46.519 --> 00:32:50.720
ascent of Snowden. I also went with my sister on
476
00:32:50.799 --> 00:32:55.279
a writing tour in North Wales, a servant with saddlebags
477
00:32:55.400 --> 00:32:59.880
carrying our clothes. The autumns were devoted to shooting, chiefly
478
00:33:00.440 --> 00:33:05.920
mister Owen's at Woodhouse and at my uncle Joe's Josiah Wedgwood,
479
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:10.680
the son of the founder of the Eturi Awards. At Mayor.
480
00:33:11.799 --> 00:33:14.319
My zeal was so great that I used to place
481
00:33:14.400 --> 00:33:18.319
my shooting boots open beside my bedside when I went
482
00:33:18.359 --> 00:33:21.319
to bed, so as not to lose half a minute
483
00:33:21.359 --> 00:33:24.119
in putting them on in the morning. And on one
484
00:33:24.200 --> 00:33:27.160
occasion I reached a distant part of the mayor estate
485
00:33:27.880 --> 00:33:32.079
on the twentieth of August for black game shooting before
486
00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:35.839
I could see. Then, I toiled on the gamekeeper the
487
00:33:35.920 --> 00:33:39.200
whole day through the thick heap and young scotch. First
488
00:33:40.160 --> 00:33:43.160
I kept an exact record of every bird which I
489
00:33:43.240 --> 00:33:46.759
shot through the whole season. One day, when shooting at
490
00:33:46.839 --> 00:33:51.079
Woodhouse with Captain Owen, the eldest son, and Major Hill,
491
00:33:51.359 --> 00:33:55.799
his cousin afterwards, Lord Berwick, both of them who I
492
00:33:55.920 --> 00:34:01.039
liked very latching, I thought myself shamefully used, for every
493
00:34:01.079 --> 00:34:03.720
time after I had fired and thought I had killed
494
00:34:03.720 --> 00:34:07.000
a bird, one of the two acted as if loading
495
00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:10.920
his gun and cried out, you must not count that bird,
496
00:34:11.079 --> 00:34:14.920
for I fired at the same time, and the gamekeeper,
497
00:34:15.079 --> 00:34:19.039
perceiving a joke, backed them up. After some hours they
498
00:34:19.079 --> 00:34:21.599
told me the joke, But it was no joke to me,
499
00:34:22.199 --> 00:34:25.119
for I had shot a large number of birds, but
500
00:34:25.239 --> 00:34:28.039
did not know how many, and could not add them
501
00:34:28.039 --> 00:34:30.719
to my list, which I used to do by making
502
00:34:30.760 --> 00:34:35.079
a knot in a piece of string tied to a buttonhole. This,
503
00:34:35.519 --> 00:34:40.360
my wicked friends, had perceived how I did enjoy shooting.
504
00:34:40.920 --> 00:34:43.320
But I think that I must have have been half
505
00:34:43.480 --> 00:34:47.199
consciously ashamed of my zeal, for I tried to persuade
506
00:34:47.199 --> 00:34:51.840
myself that shooting was almost an intellectual employment. It required
507
00:34:51.960 --> 00:34:55.039
so much skill to judge where to find the most
508
00:34:55.079 --> 00:34:58.840
game and to hunt the dogs well. One of my
509
00:34:59.039 --> 00:35:03.480
autumnal visits to Mayor in eighteen twenty seven was memorable
510
00:35:03.519 --> 00:35:08.000
for meeting there Sir j McIntosh, who is the best
511
00:35:08.199 --> 00:35:12.559
converser I ever listened to. I heard afterwards, with a
512
00:35:12.639 --> 00:35:16.239
glow of pride, that he had said, there is something
513
00:35:16.280 --> 00:35:19.559
in that young man that interests me. This must have
514
00:35:19.599 --> 00:35:22.599
been chiefly due to his proceeding that I listened with
515
00:35:22.679 --> 00:35:26.440
much interest to everything which he said, For I was
516
00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:29.920
as ignorant as a pig about his subjects of history,
517
00:35:30.119 --> 00:35:35.239
politics and moral philosophy. To hear praise from an eminent person,
518
00:35:35.760 --> 00:35:39.599
though no doubt apt or certain to excite vanity, is
519
00:35:39.880 --> 00:35:42.840
I think good for a young man, as it helps
520
00:35:42.880 --> 00:35:46.400
to keep him on the right course. My visits to
521
00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:51.119
Mayor during these two or three succeeding years were quite delightful.
522
00:35:51.639 --> 00:35:56.679
Independently of the autumnal shooting. Life there was perfectly free,
523
00:35:57.079 --> 00:36:00.599
The country was very pleasant for walking or writing, and
524
00:36:00.800 --> 00:36:05.000
in the evening there was much very agreeable conversation, not
525
00:36:05.159 --> 00:36:09.079
so personally as it generally is in large family parties,
526
00:36:09.400 --> 00:36:13.360
together with music. In the summer of the whole family
527
00:36:13.840 --> 00:36:16.880
used often to sit on the steps of the old portico,
528
00:36:17.440 --> 00:36:20.280
with the flower garden in front, and with the steep
529
00:36:20.320 --> 00:36:24.159
wooded bank opposite the house reflected in the lake. With
530
00:36:24.280 --> 00:36:27.239
here and there a fish rising on a water bird
531
00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:32.199
paddling about. Nothing has left a more vivid picture on
532
00:36:32.320 --> 00:36:35.960
my mind than these evenings at Mayor. I was also
533
00:36:36.039 --> 00:36:40.320
attached to, and greatly revered my uncle jos He was
534
00:36:40.360 --> 00:36:43.679
silent and reserved, so as to be a rather awful man,
535
00:36:44.280 --> 00:36:47.920
but he sometimes talked openly with me. He was a
536
00:36:48.079 --> 00:36:51.360
very type of an upright man, with the clearest judgment.
537
00:36:51.960 --> 00:36:54.480
I do not believe that any power on earth could
538
00:36:54.480 --> 00:36:57.320
have made him swerve an inch for what he considered
539
00:36:57.320 --> 00:37:00.519
the right course. I used to apply to him in
540
00:37:00.599 --> 00:37:04.679
my mind the well known ou Deporus, now forgotten by me,
541
00:37:05.440 --> 00:37:09.880
in which the words nec voltus tyranni et cetera come
542
00:37:09.960 --> 00:37:18.719
in justum et tanasum crofts piti verro, noncivium ardor prava jubentium,
543
00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:24.960
non voltus instantis tyranni menti qualitat solida.
544
00:37:27.440 --> 00:37:39.519
End of Section one