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The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin
Edited by his Son
Francis Darwin
[My father's autobiographical recollections, given in the present
chapter, were written for his children,--and written without any
thought that they would ever be published. To many this may seem an
impossibility; but those who knew my father will understand how it was
not only possible, but natural. The autobiography bears the heading,
'Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character,' and end
with the following note:--"Aug. 3, 1876. This sketch of my life was
begun about May 28th at Hopedene (Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood's house in
Surrey.), and since then I have written for nearly an hour on most
afternoons." It will easily be understood that, in a narrative of a
personal and intimate kind written for his wife and children, passages
should occur which must here be omitted; and I have not thought it
necessary to indicate where such omissions are made. It has been
found necessary to make a few corrections of obvious verbal slips, but
the number of such alterations has been kept down to the
minimum.--F.D.]
A German Editor having written to me for an account of the development
of my mind and character with some sketch of my autobiography, I have
thought that the attempt would amuse me, and might possibly interest
my children or their children. I know that it would have interested
me greatly to have read even so short and dull a sketch of the mind of
my grandfather, written by himself, and what he thought and did, and
how he worked. I have attempted to write the following account of
myself, as if I were a dead man in another world looking back at my
own life. Nor have I found this difficult, for life is nearly over
with me. I have taken no pains about my style of writing.
I was born at Shrewsbury on February 12th, 1809, and my earliest
recollection goes back only to when I was a few months over four years
old, when we went to near Abergele for sea-bathing, and I recollect
some events and places there with some little distinctness.
My mother died in July 1817, when I was a little over eight years old,
and it is odd that I can remember hardly anything about her except her
death-bed, her black velvet gown, and her curiously constructed
work-table. In the spring of this same year I was sent to a
day-school in Shrewsbury, where I stayed a year. I have been told
that I was much slower in learning than my younger sister Catherine,
and I believe that I was in many ways a naughty boy.
By the time I went to this day-school (Kept by Rev. G. Case, minister
of the Unitarian Chapel in the High Street. Mrs. Darwin was a
Unitarian and attended Mr. Case's chapel, and my father as a little
boy went there with his elder sisters. But both he and his brother
were christened and intended to belong to the Church of England; and
after his early boyhood he seems usually to have gone to church and
not to Mr. Case's. It appears ("St. James' Gazette", Dec. 15, 1883)
that a mural tablet has been erected to his memory in the chapel,
which is now known as the 'Free Christian Church.') my taste for
natural history, and more especially for collecting, was well
developed. I tried to make out the names of plants (Rev. W.A.
Leighton, who was a schoolfellow of my father's at Mr. Case's school,
remembers his bringing a flower to school and saying that his mother
had taught him how by looking at the inside of the blossom the name of
the plant could be discovered. Mr. Leighton goes on, "This greatly
roused my attention and curiosity, and I enquired of him repeatedly
how this could be done?"--but his lesson was naturally enough not
transmissible.--F.D.), and collected all sorts of things, shells,
seals, franks, coins, and minerals. The passion for collecting which
leads a man to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was
very strong in me, and was clearly innate, as none of my sisters or
brother ever had this taste.
One little event during this year has fixed itself very firmly in my
mind, and I hope that it has done so from my conscience having been
afterwards sorely troubled by it; it is curious as showing that
apparently I was interested at this early age in the variability of
plants! I told another little boy (I believe it was Leighton, who
afterwards became a well-known lichenologist and botanist), that I
could produce variously coloured polyanthuses and primroses by
watering them with certain coloured fluids, which was of course a
monstrous fable, and had never been tried by me. I may here also
confess that as a little boy I was much given to inventing deliberate
falsehoods, and this was always done for the sake of causing
excitement. For instance, I once gathered much valuable fruit from my
father's trees and hid it in the shrubbery, and then ran in breathless
haste to spread the news that I had discovered a hoard of stolen
fruit.
I must have been a very simple little fellow when I first went to the
school. A boy of the name of Garnett took me into a cake shop one
day, and bought some cakes for which he did not pay, as the shopman
trusted him. When we came out I asked him why he did not pay for
them, and he instantly answered, "Why, do you not know that my uncle
left a great sum of money to the town on condition that every
tradesman should give whatever was wanted without payment to any one
who wore his old hat and moved [it] in a particular manner?" and he
then showed me how it was moved. He then went into another shop where
he was trusted, and asked for some small article, moving his hat in
the proper manner, and of course obtained it without payment. When we
came out he said, "Now if you like to go by yourself into that
cake-shop (how well I remember its exact position) I will lend you my
hat, and you can get whatever you like if you move the hat on your
head properly." I gladly accepted the generous offer, and went in and
asked for some cakes, moved the old hat and was walking out of the
shop, when the shopman made a rush at me, so I dropped the cakes and
ran for dear life, and was astonished by being greeted with shouts of
laughter by my false friend Garnett.
I can say in my own favour that I was as a boy humane, but I owed this
entirely to the instruction and example of my sisters. I doubt indeed
whether humanity is a natural or innate quality. I was very fond of
collecting eggs, but I never took more than a single egg out of a
bird's nest, except on one single occasion, when I took all, not for
their value, but from a sort of bravado.
I had a strong taste for angling, and would sit for any number of
hours on the bank of a river or pond watching the float; when at Maer
(The house of his uncle, Josiah Wedgwood.) I was told that I could
kill the worms with salt and water, and from that day I never spitted
a living worm, though at the expense probably of some loss of success.
Once as a very little boy whilst at the day school, or before that
time, I acted cruelly, for I beat a puppy, I believe, simply from
enjoying the sense of power; but the beating could not have been
severe, for the puppy did not howl, of which I feel sure, as the spot
was near the house. This act lay heavily on my conscience, as is
shown by my remembering the exact spot where the crime was committed.
It probably lay all the heavier from my love of dogs being then, and
for a long time afterwards, a passion. Dogs seemed to know this, for
I was an adept in robbing their love from their masters.
I remember clearly only one other incident during this year whilst at
Mr. Case's daily school,--namely, the burial of a dragoon soldier; and
it is surprising how clearly I can still see the horse with the man's
empty boots and carbine suspended to the saddle, and the firing over
the grave. This scene deeply stirred whatever poetic fancy there was
in me.
In the summer of 1818 I went to Dr. Butler's great school in
Shrewsbury, and remained there for seven years still Midsummer 1825,
when I was sixteen years old. I boarded at this school, so that I had
the great advantage of living the life of a true schoolboy; but as the
distance was hardly more than a mile to my home, I very often ran
there in the longer intervals between the callings over and before
locking up at night. This, I think, was in many ways advantageous to
me by keeping up home affections and interests. I remember in the
early part of my school life that I often had to run very quickly to
be in time, and from being a fleet runner was generally successful;
but when in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well
remember that I attributed my success to the prayers and not to my
quick running, and marvelled how generally I was aided.
I have heard my father and elder sister say that I had, as a very
young boy, a strong taste for long solitary walks; but what I thought
about I know not. I often became quite absorbed, and once, whilst
returning to school on the summit of the old fortifications round
Shrewsbury, which had been converted into a public foot-path with no
parapet on one side, I walked off and fell to the ground, but the
height was only seven or eight feet. Nevertheless the number of
thoughts which passed through my mind during this very short, but
sudden and wholly unexpected fall, was astonishing, and seem hardly
compatible with what physiologists have, I believe, proved about each
thought requiring quite an appreciable amount of time.
Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr.
Butler's school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being
taught, except a little ancient geography and history. The school as
a means of education to me was simply a blank. During my whole life I
have been singularly incapable of mastering any language. Especial
attention was paid to verse-making, and this I could never do well. I
had many friends, and got together a good collection of old verses,
which by patching together, sometimes aided by other boys, I could
work into any subject. Much attention was paid to learning by heart
the lessons of the previous day; this I could effect with great
facility, learning forty or fifty lines of Virgil or Homer, whilst I
was in morning chapel; but this exercise was utterly useless, for
every verse was forgotten in forty-eight hours. I was not idle, and
with the exception of versification, generally worked conscientiously
at my classics, not using cribs. The sole pleasure I ever received
from such studies, was from some of the odes of Horace, which I
admired greatly.
When I left the school I was for my age neither high nor low in it;
and I believe that I was considered by all my masters and by my father
as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.
To my deep mortification my father once said to me, "You care for
nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat- catching, and you will be a
disgrace to yourself and all your family." But my father, who was the
kindest man I ever knew and whose memory I love with all my heart,
must have been angry and somewhat unjust when he used such words.
Looking back as well as I can at my character during my school life,
the only qualities which at this period promised well for the future,
were, that I had strong and diversified tastes, much zeal for whatever
interested me, and a keen pleasure in understanding any complex
subject or thing. I was taught Euclid by a private tutor, and I
distinctly remember the intense satisfaction which the clear
geometrical proofs gave me. I remember, with equal distinctness, the
delight which my uncle gave me (the father of Francis Galton) by
explaining the principle of the vernier of a barometer. with respect
to diversified tastes, independently of science, I was fond of reading
various books, and I used to sit for hours reading the historical
plays of Shakespeare, generally in an old window in the thick walls of
the school. I read also other poetry, such as Thomson's 'Seasons,'
and the recently published poems of Byron and Scott. I mention this
because later in life I wholly lost, to my great regret, all pleasure
from poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare. In connection with
pleasure from poetry, I may add that in 1822 a vivid delight in
scenery was first awakened in my mind, during a riding tour on the
borders of Wales, and this has lasted longer than any other aesthetic
pleasure.
Early in my school days a boy had a copy of the 'Wonders of the
World,' which I often read, and disputed with other boys about the
veracity of some of the statements; and I believe that this book first
gave me a wish to travel in remote countries, which was ultimately
fulfilled by the voyage of the "Beagle". In the latter part of my
school life I became passionately fond of shooting; I do not believe
that any one could have shown more zeal for the most holy cause than I
did for shooting birds. How well I remember killing my first snipe,
and my excitement was so great that I had much difficulty in reloading
my gun from the trembling of my hands. This taste long continued, and
I became a very good shot. When at Cambridge I used to practise
throwing up my gun to my shoulder before a looking-glass to see that I
threw it up straight. Another and better plan was to get a friend to
wave about a lighted candle, and then to fire at it with a cap on the
nipple, and if the aim was accurate the little puff of air would blow
out the candle. The explosion of the cap caused a sharp crack, and I
was told that the tutor of the college remarked, "What an
extraordinary thing it is, Mr. Darwin seems to spend hours in cracking
a horse-whip in his room, for I often hear the crack when I pass under
his windows."
I had many friends amongst the schoolboys, whom I loved dearly, and I
think that my disposition was then very affectionate.
With respect to science, I continued collecting minerals with much
zeal, but quite unscientifically--all that I cared about was a
new-NAMED mineral, and I hardly attempted to classify them. I must
have observed insects with some little care, for when ten years old
(1819) I went for three weeks to Plas Edwards on the sea-coast in
Wales, I was very much interested and surprised at seeing a large
black and scarlet Hemipterous insect, many moths (Zygaena), and a
Cicindela which are not found in Shropshire. I almost made up my mind
to begin collecting all the insects which I could find dead, for on
consulting my sister I concluded that it was not right to kill insects
for the sake of making a collection. From reading White's 'Selborne,'
I took much pleasure in watching the habits of birds, and even made
notes on the subject. In my simplicity I remember wondering why every
gentleman did not become an ornithologist.
Towards the close of my school life, my brother worked hard at
chemistry, and made a fair laboratory with proper apparatus in the
tool-house in the garden, and I was allowed to aid him as a servant in
most of his experiments. He made all the gases and many compounds,
and I read with great care several books on chemistry, such as Henry
and Parkes' 'Chemical Catechism.' The subject interested me greatly,
and we often used to go on working till rather late at night. This
was the best part of my education at school, for it showed me
practically the meaning of experimental science. The fact that we
worked at chemistry somehow got known at school, and as it was an
unprecedented fact, I was nicknamed "Gas." I was also once publicly
rebuked by the head-master, Dr. Butler, for thus wasting my time on
such useless subjects; and he called me very unjustly a "poco
curante," and as I did not understand what he meant, it seemed to me a
fearful reproach.