ere revolting.
In his eyes might was right. His mind seemed to me a very narrow one;
even if all branches of science, which he despised, are excluded. It is
astonishing to me that Kingsley should have spoken of him as a man
well fitted to advance science. He laughed to scorn the idea that a
mathematician, such as Whewell, could judge, as I maintained he could,
of Goethe's views on light. He thought it a most ridiculous thing that
any one should care whether a glacier moved a little quicker or a little
slower, or moved at all. As far as I could judge, I never met a man with
a mind so ill adapted for scientific research.

Whilst living in London, I attended as regularly as I could the
meetings of several scientific societies, and acted as secretary to the
Geological Society. But such attendance, and ordinary society, suited my
health so badly that we resolved to live in the country, which we both
preferred and have never repented of.

RESIDENCE AT DOWN FROM SEPTEMBER 14, 1842, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1876.

After several fruitless searches in Surrey and elsewhere, we found this
house and purchased it. I was pleased with the diversified appearance
of vegetation proper to a chalk district, and so unlike what I had been
accustomed to in the Midland counties; and still more pleased with the
extreme quietness and rusticity of the place. It is not, however, quite
so retired a place as a writer in a German periodical makes it, who
says that my house can be approached only by a mule-track! Our fixing
ourselves here has answered admirably in one way, which we did not
anticipate, namely, by being very convenient for frequent visits from
our children.

Few persons can have lived a more retired life than we have done.
Besides short visits to the houses of relations, and occasionally to the
seaside or elsewhere, we have gone nowhere. During the first part of
our residence we went a little into society, and received a few friends
here; but my health almost always suffered from the excitement, violent
shivering and vomiting attacks being thus brought on. I have therefore
been compelled for many years to give up all dinner-parties; and this
has been somewhat of a deprivation to me, as such parties always put me
into high spirits. From the same cause I have been able to invite here
very few scientific acquaintances.

My chief enjoyment and sole employment throughout life has been
scientific work; and the excitement from such work