Volume 1

More letters of Charles Darwin : a record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters / edited by Francis Darwin ... and A.C. Seward.

  • Charles Darwin
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: More letters of Charles Darwin : a record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters / edited by Francis Darwin ... and A.C. Seward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1809—1842] SCHOOL 3 crying afterwards. I recollect my mother’s gown and scarcely anything of her appearance, except one or two walks with her. I have no distinct remembrance of any conversation, and those only of a very trivial nature. I remember her saying “if she did ask me to do something,” which I said she had, “ it was solely for my good,” Catherine remembers my mother crying, when she heard of my grandmother’s death. Also when at Parkfield how Aunt Sarah and Aunt Kitty used to receive her. Susan, like me, only remembers affairs personal. It is sufficiently odd this [difference] in subjects remembered. Catherine says she does not remember the impression made upon her by external things, as scenery, but for things which she reads she has an excellent memory, z.e., for ideas. Now her sympathy being ideal, it is part of her character, and shows how easily her kind of memory was stamped, a vivid thought is repeated, a vivid impression forgotten. I remember obscurely the illumination after the battle of Waterloo, and the Militia exercising about that period, in the field opposite our house. 1817. At 8J years old I went to Mr. Case’s School.1 I remember how very much I was afraid of meeting the dogs in Barker Street, and how at school I could not get up my courage to fight. I was very timid by nature. I remember I took great delight at school in fishing for newts in the quarry pool. I had thus young formed a strong taste for collecting, chiefly seals, franks, etc., but also pebbles and minerals—one which was given me by some boy decided this taste. I believe shortly after this, or before, I had smattered in botany, and certainly when at Mr. Case’s School I was very fond of gardening, and invented some great falsehoods about being able to colour crocuses2 as I liked. At this time I felt very strong friendship for some boys. It was soon after I began collecting stones, z.e., when 9 or 10, that I distinctly recollect the desire I had of being able to know something about every pebble in front of the hall door—it was my earliest and only geological aspiration at that time. I was in those days 1 A day-school at Shrewsbury kept by Rev. G. Case, minister of the Unitarian Chapel (.Life and Letters, Vol. I., p. 27 et seq.). The story is given in the Life and Letters, I., p. 28, the details being slightly different.
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