from handsome. Physically he was never strong. In
disposition he was gentle and most lovable. His mother died when he was
eight years of age, and his three older sisters then mothered him.
Between them all existed a tie of affection, very gentle, and very firm.

The girls knew that Charles would become an eminent man--just how they
could not guess--but he would be a leader of men: they felt it in their
hearts. It was all the beautiful dream that the mother has for her babe
as she sings to the man-child a lullaby as the sun goes down.

In his autobiographical sketch, written when he was past sixty, Darwin
mentions this faith and love of his sisters, and says, "Personally, I
never had much ambition, but when at college I felt that I must work, if
for no other reason, so as not to disappoint my sisters."

At school Charles was considerable of a grubber: he worked hard because
he felt that it was his duty. English boarding-schools have always
taught things out of season, and very often have succeeded in making
learning wholly repugnant. Perhaps that is the reason why nine men out
of ten who go to college cease all study as soon as they stand on "the
threshold," looking at life ere they seize it by the tail and snap its
head off. To them education is one thing and life another.

But with many headaches and many heartaches Charles got through
Cambridge and then was sent to attend lectures at the University of
Edinburgh. Of one lecturer in Scotland he says, "The good man was really
more dull than his books, and how I escaped without all science being
utterly distasteful to me I hardly know." To Cambridge, Darwin owed
nothing but the association with other minds, yet this was much, and
almost justifies the college. "Send your sons to college and the boys
will educate them," said Emerson.

The most beneficent influence for Darwin at Cambridge was the friendship
between himself and Professor Henslow. Darwin became known as "the man
who walks with Henslow." The professor taught botany, and took his
classes on tramps a-field and on barge rides down the river, giving
out-of-door lectures on the way. This commonsense way of teaching
appealed to Darwin greatly, and although he did not at Cambridge take up
botany as a study, yet when Henslow had an out-of-door class he usually
managed to go along.

In his autobiography Darwin gives great credit to this very gentle and
simple soul, who, although not being great as a thinker, yet c