Rustic Sounds, and Other Studies in Literature and Natural History

by Sir Francis Darwin

His daughter, Madame Raverat, writes:

I think most people might not realise that the sense of adventure and romance was the most important thing in my father’s life, except his love of work. He thought about all life romantically, and his own life in particular; one could feel it in the quality of everything he said about himself. Everything in the world was interesting and wonderful to him, and he had the power of making other people feel it.

He had a passion for going everywhere and seeing everything; learning every language, knowing the technicalities of every trade; and all this emphatically not from the scientific or collector’s point of view, but from a deep sense of the romance and interest of everything. It was splendid to travel with him; he always learned as much as possible of the language, and talked to everyone; we had to see simply everything there was to be seen, and it was all interesting, like an adventure. For instance, at Vienna I remember being taken to a most improper music hall, and at Schönbrunn hearing from an old forester the whole secret history of the old Emperor’s son. My father would tell us the stories of the places we went to with an incomparable conviction and sense of the reality and dramaticness of the events. It is absurd, of course, but in that respect he always seemed to me a little like Sir Walter Scott. [187]

The books he used to read to us when we were quite small, and which we adored, were Percy’s Reliques and the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. He used often to read Shakespeare to himself, I think generally the historical plays; also Chaucer, Don Quixote in Spanish, and all kind of books like Joinville’s Life of St. Louis in the old French.

I remember the story of the death of Gordon told so that we all cried, I think; and Gladstone could hardly be mentioned in consequence. All kinds of wars and battles interested him, and I think he liked archery more because it was romantic than because it was a game.

During his last illness his interest in the Balkan war never failed. Three weeks before his death he was so ill that the doctor thought him dying. Suddenly he rallied from the half-unconscious state in which he had been lying for many hours, and the first words he spoke on opening his eyes were, “Have they got to Constantinople yet?” This was very characteristic. I often wish he was alive now, because his understanding and appreciation of the glory and tragedy of this war would be like no one else’s.

His daughter Margaret writes:

He was absolutely unselfconscious, and it never seemed to occur to him to wonder what impression he was making on others. I think it was this simplicity which made him so good with children. He seemed to understand their point of view, and to enjoy with them in a way that is not common with grown-up people. I shall never forget how when our dog had to be killed he seemed to feel the horror of it just as I did, and how this sense of his really sharing my grief made him able to comfort me as nobody else could.

He took a transparent pleasure in the honours that came to him, especially in his membership of foreign Academies, in which he and Sir David Gill had a friendly rivalry or “race,” as they called it. I think this simplicity was one of his chief characteristics, though most important of all was the great warmth and width of his affections. He would take endless trouble about his friends, especially in going to see them if they were lonely or ill; and he was absolutely faithful and generous in his love.

After his mother came to live in Cambridge I believe he hardly ever missed a day in going to see her, even though he might only be able to stay a few minutes. She lived at some distance off, and he was often both busy and tired. This constancy was very characteristic. It was shown once more in his many visits to Jim Harradine, the marker at the tennis court, on what proved to be his death-bed.

His energy and his kindness of heart were shown in many cases of distress. For instance, a guard on the Great Northern Railway was robbed of his savings by an absconding solicitor, and George succeeded in collecting some £300 for him. In later years, when his friend the guard became bedridden, George often went to see him. Another man whom he befriended was a one-legged man at Balsham, whom he happened to notice in bicycling past. He took the trouble to see the village authorities, and succeeded in sending the man to London to be fitted with an artificial leg.

In these and similar cases there was always the touch of personal sympathy. For instance, he pensioned the widow of his gardener, and he often made the payment of her weekly allowance the excuse for a visit.

In another sort of charity he was equally kindhearted, viz., in answering the people who wrote foolish letters to him on scientific subjects—and here as in many points he resembled his father.

His sister, Mrs. Litchfield, has truly said [190] of George, that he inherited his father’s power of work and much of his “cordiality and warmth of nature, with a characteristic power of helping others.” He resembled his father in another quality, that of modesty. His friend and pupil, Professor E. W. Brown, writes:

He was always modest about the importance of his researches. He would often wonder whether the results were worth the labour they had cost him, and whether he would have been better employed in some other way.