IV
Though Darwin’s social activity was necessarily restricted by his ill-health, his devotion to special friends was as sweet and notable as his devotion to his family. Indeed, friendship, the natural turning to sympathetic spirits, and clinging to them with constant loyalty, seems to have been a peculiarly profound and powerful instinct in him. He took a deep interest in all his friends’ affairs, and poured out all his own interests to them with intimate and appealing effusiveness. In writing of his grandfather, he says: ‘There is, perhaps, no safer test of a man’s real character than that of his long continued friendship with good and able men.’[222] Assuredly, if the test is applied to himself, he bears it nobly.
Of his longing for friendship and great aptness for it in boyhood he speaks very positively: ‘I had many friends amongst the schoolboys, whom I loved dearly, and I think that my disposition was then very affectionate.’[223] His son says that the friendships of mature life had not quite the zest and passion of those of youth; but the son adds with justice that no one who reads his father’s letters can feel that his later affections were lacking in intensity or depth.[224]
There can be no doubt that Darwin’s influence over his friends was very great, probably all the more so because he was so unassertive and disinclined to interfere or to dictate. Sir John Lubbock is said to have ‘owed to the great Charles Darwin even a larger debt in the respect of character formation than in the encouragement and direction of his mental gifts.’[225] Darwin did not hesitate to advise urgently and warmly, where he felt that advice was needed. For example, he writes to Hooker about his health: ‘Take warning by me, and do not work too hard. For God’s sake, think of this.’[226] He did not hesitate to differ, or to question, or to argue, when he thought his friends were wrong, and he could set them right.
At the same time, owing to his humility and natural self-effacement, the chief impression one gets from the intimate personal correspondence is that of turning to friends for counsel, encouragement, and support. Not that he was not amply able and ready to stand on his own feet; but to develop his views and arguments to others seemed to clarify them and to give them added force and significance for himself: ‘I will write no more, which is a great virtue in me; for it is to me a very great pleasure telling you everything I do.’[227] Honor, commendation, appreciation, when they came from the public, were all very well; but their value and their charm were doubled when they came from those one loved. Thus, he writes in regard to a letter of Hooker, congratulating him on the receipt of a medal: ‘I then opened yours, and such is the effect of warmth, friendship, and kindness from one that is loved, that the very same fact, told as you told it, made me glow with pleasure till my very heart throbbed.’[228] I have already alluded to his expressions of gratitude and appreciation for all the support and assistance that his friends gave him; but the expression is so tender, and so constant, and so thoroughly characteristic, that it cannot be too much insisted upon.
Nor was Darwin’s affection for his friends lacking in the practical side any more than in the sentimental. He was ready to give his time and his strength in their service, though time was so limited and strength so much needed and so essential. When utter prostration makes assistance impossible, he reproaches himself bitterly, and zealously offers to make up the defect. As when he writes to Hooker: ‘I write now to say that I am uneasy in my conscience about hesitating to look over your proofs, but I was feeling miserably unwell and shattered when I wrote. I do not suppose I could be of hardly any use, but if I could, pray send me any proofs. I should be (and I fear I was) the most ungrateful man to hesitate to do anything for you after some fifteen or more years’ help from you.’[229] Or, in slighter matters, the sacrifice is given a humorous turn, as when Darwin visits his old friend Sedgwick and allows himself to be put through the sights of the Museum without protest though he suffers for the effort for a long time afterwards: ‘Is it not humiliating to be thus killed by a man of eighty-six, who evidently never dreamed that he was killing me?’[230]
And if time and strength, so vital and in general miserly hoarded, were not spared, it is easy to imagine that money was not. Scientists are not always wealthy, and their researches require ample means for their prosecution. Scientists wear themselves out in eager toil and then are too often hard put to it for funds with which to recuperate. Darwin was always watchful, interested, ready, generous, and best of all unobtrusive in supplying these needs. If his closest friend and supporter Huxley broke down, Darwin was quick to head a subscription to make recovery possible. If he heard that a fellow-worker in Germany, who was accomplishing great results with small means, was hampered and embarrassed for lack of books, he writes at once: ‘Forgive me, but why should you not order through your brother Hermann, books, etc., to the amount of £100, and I would send a check to him as soon as I heard the exact amount? This would be no inconvenience to me; on the contrary, it would be an honor and lasting pleasure to me to have aided you in your invaluable scientific work to this small and trifling extent.’[231]
But the merely material relation of support and assistance was a small affair compared to the profound affection which Darwin seemed peculiarly calculated to convey and inspire. The note of this affection sounds through all his correspondence and gives it a more winning quality than almost anything else. How deep and strong was his friends’ regard for him is nicely indicated in the passage in which Huxley analyzes the bearing of it upon his work and success: ‘I cannot agree with you, again, that the acceptance of Darwin’s views was in any way influenced by the strong affection entertained for him by many of his friends. What the affection really did was to lead those of his friends who had seen good reason for his views to take much more trouble in his defense and support and to strike out much harder at his adversary than they would otherwise have done. This is pardonable, if not justifiable—that which you suggest would to my mind be neither.’[232]
As for Darwin’s own feeling, I know nothing that brings it home more vividly, when one considers his zeal for his work and for success with it, than the passage in which he declares such success and everything else to be trash beside love: “Talk of fame, honor, pleasure, wealth, all are dirt compared with affection; and this is a doctrine which, I know, from your letter, that you will agree with from the bottom of your heart.’[233] After which I think we may conclude generally that few human beings have been more endowed than Charles Darwin with tenderness and sympathy for all created things.’