and Letters of Charles Darwin_, I
naturally asked Mr. Galton for leave to publish the letters he had
received from my father. But he would not agree. Mr. Darwin, he said,
had spoken far too kindly of his work, and he preferred to keep the
praise to himself. But later, when he wrote his _Memories_, {26a} he
fortunately realised that it is wiser to think of the value to the world
of such documents, than of private likes or dislikes. The letter my
father wrote about _Hereditary Genius_ which Galton says "made him most
happy" begins:

"I have only read about 50 pages of your book . . . but I must exhale
myself, else something will go wrong in my inside, I do not think I ever
in all my life read anything more interesting and original." {26b}

In reading this great book it is, I think, impossible to doubt the
strength of the work. The quiet relentless way in which his territory is
pegged out, and the clear wisdom with which the terms of the new science
are defined, are equally impressive. And for lighter enjoyment his
illustrations are to be recommended. He has to settle precisely what he
means by a man being _eminent_ or _illustrious_ before he can begin to
ask--are these qualities hereditary? An eminent man is one in four
thousand, and to make clear what this implies, he writes: "On the most
brilliant of starlight nights there are never so many as 4000 stars
visible to the naked eye at the same time; yet we feel it to be an
extraordinary distinction to a star to be accounted as the brightest in
the sky." {27a} If we could imagine that each new night shows us a fresh
set of stars, we might speculate as to how many nights we should watch
the sky before we found one bright enough for a Galton.

In the same way he tries to make us see a million, because in that number
there is but one illustrious man. He worked it out in Bushey Park, where
he had gone to see the horse-chestnuts in flower, and came to the
astonishing conclusion that, taking one half only of the avenue and the
flowers visible on the sunny side of that row, it would require 10 miles
of avenue to give 1,000,000 spikes of blossom.

Later he defines _mediocrity_ in a way not very flattering to those, who,
like myself, live in the country. Mediocrity {27b} then "defines the
intellectual power found in most provincial gatherings, because the
attractions of a more stirring life in the metropolis and elsewhere are
apt to draw away the abler classes of men,