cal Society of Cambridge, and those
which Sedgwick submitted to the Geological Society. At Ascension, on the
voyage home, a letter from Darwin's sisters had informed him of the
commendation with which Sedgwick had spoken to his father of these
papers, and he wrote fifty years afterwards: 'After reading this letter,
I clambered over the mountains of Ascension with a bounding step, and
made the volcanic rocks ring under my geological hammer.' When in 1839
his charming _Journal of Researches_ was published he records that 'The
success of this my first literary child always tickles my vanity more
than that of any of my other books[122].'

As a matter of fact, no one could possibly be more diffident and modest
about his actual literary performances than was Charles Darwin. I have
heard him again and again express a wish that he possessed 'dear old
Lyell's literary skill'; and he often spoke with the greatest enthusiasm
of the 'clearness and force of Huxley's style.' On one occasion he
mentioned to me, with something like sadness in his voice, that it had
been asserted 'there was a want of connection and continuity in the
written arguments,' and he told me that, while engaged on the _Origin_,
he had seldom been able to write, without interruption from pain, for
more than twenty minutes at a time!

Charles Darwin never spoke definitely to me about the nature of the
sufferings that he so patiently endured. On the occasion of my first
visit to him at Down he wrote me a letter (dated August 25th, 1880) in
which, after giving the most minute and kindly directions concerning the
journey, he arranged that his dog-cart should bring me to the house in
time for a 1 o'clock lunch, telling me that to catch a certain train for
return, it would be necessary to leave his house a little before 4
o'clock. But he added significantly:--

'But I am bound to tell you that I shall not be able to talk
with you or anyone else for this length of time, however much I
should like to do so--but you can read newspaper or take a
stroll during part of the time.'

His constant practice, whenever I visited him, either at Down or at his
brother's or daughter's house in London, was to retire with me, after
lunch, to a room where we could 'talk geology' for about three quarters
of an hour. At the end of that time, Mrs Darwin would come in smilingly,
and though no word was spoken by her, Darwin would at once rise and beg
me to read the newspa