June 18.
Dr.——, M.A., F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D., called in the office to-day, and seeing Dad typing, said, "Are you Mr. Barbellion?" Dad replied in the affirmative, whereupon the Doctor handed him his card, and Dad said he thought it was his son he wanted to see. He is an old gentleman aged eighty or thereabouts, with elastic-sided boots, an umbrella, and a guardian nephew—a youngster of about sixty. But I paid him due reverence as a celebrated zoologist and at his invitation [and to my infinite pride] accompanied him on an excursion to the coast, where he wanted to see Philoscia Couchii, which I readily turned up for him.
I chanced to remark that I thought torsion in gastropods one of the most fascinating and difficult problems in Zoology. Why should a snail be twisted round?
"Humph," said he, "why do we stand upright?" I was not such a fool as to argue with him, so pretended his reply was a knock-out. But it enabled me to size him up intellectually.
In the evening dined with him at his hotel.... He knows Wallace and Haeckel personally, and I sat at his feet with my tongue out listening to personal reminiscences of these great men. However, he seemed never to have heard of Gaskell's Theory on the Origin of Vertebrates.
June 27.
Walked to V——. As usual, Nature with clockwork regularity had all her taps turned on—larks singing, cherries ripening, and bees humming. It all bored me a little. Why doesn't she vary it a little?
August 8.
A cold note from Dr. —— saying that he cannot undertake the responsibility of advising me to give up journalism for zoology.
A hellish cold in the head. Also a swingeing inflammation of the eyes. Just heard them singing in the Chapel over the way: "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Hope so, I'm sure.