He proceeds to trust himself thus:—
“His love of truth, his singleness of heart, his sincerity, his earnestness, his modesty, his candour, his absolute sinking of self and selfishness—these, indeed are all conspicuous to every reader on the very face of every word he ever printed.”
This “conspicuous sinking of self” is of a piece with the “delightful unostentatiousness which every one must have noticed” about which Mr. Allen writes on page 65. Does he mean that Mr. Darwin was “ostentatiously unostentatious,” or that he was “unostentatiously ostentatious”? I think we may guess from this passage who it was that in the old days of the Pall Mall Gazelle called Mr. Darwin “a master of a certain happy simplicity.”
Mr. Allen continues:—
“Like his works themselves, they must long outlive him. But his sympathetic kindliness, his ready generosity, the staunchness of his friendship, the width and depth and breadth of his affections, the manner in which ‘he bore with those who blamed him unjustly without blaming them again’—these things can never be so well known to any other generation of men as to the three generations that walked the world with him” (pp. 174, 175).
Again:—
“He began early in life to collect and arrange a vast encyclopædia of facts, all finally focussed with supreme skill upon the great principle he so clearly perceived and so lucidly expounded. He brought to bear upon the question an amount of personal observation, of minute experiment, of world-wide book knowledge, of universal scientific ability, such as never, perhaps, was lavished by any other man upon any other department of study. His conspicuous and beautiful love of truth, his unflinching candour, his transparent fearlessness and honesty of purpose, his childlike simplicity, his modesty of demeanour, his charming manner, his affectionate disposition, his kindliness to friends, his courtesy to opponents, his gentleness to harsh and often bitter assailants, kindled in the minds of men of science everywhere throughout the world a contagious enthusiasm only equalled perhaps among the disciples of Socrates and the great teachers of the revival of learning. His name became a rallying-point for the children of light in every country” (pp. 196, 197).
I need not quote more; the sentence goes on to talk about “firmly grounding” something which philosophers and speculators might have taken a century or two more “to establish in embryo;” but those who wish to see it must turn to Mr. Allen’s book.
If I have formed too severe an estimate of Mr. Darwin’s work and character—and this is more than likely—the fulsomeness of the adulation lavished on him by his admirers for many years past must be in some measure my excuse. We grow tired even of hearing Aristides called just, but what is so freely said about Mr. Darwin puts us in mind more of what the people said about Herod—that he spoke with the voice of a God, not of a man. So we saw Professor Ray Lankester hail him not many years ago as the “greatest of living men.” [224a]
It is ill for any man’s fame that he should be praised so extravagantly. Nobody ever was as good as Mr. Darwin looked, and a counterblast to such a hurricane of praise as has been lately blowing will do no harm to his ultimate reputation, even though it too blow somewhat fiercely. Art, character, literature, religion, science (I have named them in alphabetical order), thrive best in a breezy, bracing air; I heartily hope I may never be what is commonly called successful in my own lifetime—and if I go on as I am doing now, I have a fair chance of succeeding in not succeeding.