Scientific Committees.

George served for many years on the Solar Physics Committee and on the Meteorological Council. With regard to the latter, Sir Napier Shaw has at my request given me his impressions:[178]

It was in February 1885, upon the retirement of Warren De la Rue, that your brother George, by appointment of the Royal Society, joined the governing body of the Meteorological Office, at that time the Meteorological Council. He remained a member until the end of the Council in 1905, and thereafter, until his death, he was one of the two nominees of the Royal Society upon the Meteorological Committee, the new body which was appointed by the Treasury to take over the control of the administration of the Office. . . .The Commissioners, collectively known as the Meteorological Council, were a remarkably distinguished body of Fellows of the Royal Society, and when Darwin took the place of De la Rue, the members were men subsequently famous, as Sir Richard Strachey, Sir William Wharton, Sir George Stokes, Sir Francis Galton, Sir George Darwin, with E. J. Stone, a former Astronomer Royal for the Cape. . . .I do not think that Darwin addressed himself spontaneously to meteorological problems, but he was always ready to help. He was very regular in his attendance at Council, and the minutes show that after Stokes retired, all questions involving physical measurement ormathematical reasoning were referred to him. There is a short and very characteristic report from him on the work of the harmonic analyser, and a considerable number upon researches by Mr. Dines or Sir G. Stokes on anemometers. It is hardly possible to exaggerate his aptitude for work of that kind. He could take a real interest in things that were not his own. He was full of sympathy and appreciation for efforts of all kinds, especially those of young men, and at the same time, using his wide experience, he was perfectly frank and fearless not only in his judgment but also in the expression of it. He gave one the impression of just protecting himself from boredom by habitual loyalty and a finely tempered sense of duty. My earliest recollection of him on the Council is the thrilling production of a new version of the Annual Report of the Council which he had written because the original had become more completely ‘scissors and paste’ than he could endure.After the Office came into my charge in 1900, so long as he lived I never thought of taking any serious step without first consulting him, and he was always willing to help by his advice, by his personal influence and by his special knowledge. For the first six years of the time I held a college fellowship, with the peculiar condition of four public lectures in the University each year and no emolument. One year, when I was rather overdone, Darwin took the course for me, and devoted the lectures to Dynamical Meteorology. I believe he got it up for the occasion, for he professed the utmost diffidence about it, but the progresswhich we have made in recent years in that subject dates from those lectures and the correspondence which arose upon them.In Council it was the established practice to proceed by agreement and not by voting; he had a wonderful way of bringing a discussion to a head by courageously ‘voicing’ the conclusion to which it led, and frankly expressing the general opinion without hurting anybody’s feelings. . . .It is not easy to give expression to the powerful influence which he exercised upon all departments of official meteorology without making formal contributions to meteorological literature. He gave me a note on a curious point in the evaluation of the velocity equivalents of the Beaufort Scale, which is published in the Office Memoirs No. 180, and that is all I have to show in print, but he was in and behind everything that was done, and personally, I need hardly add, I owe to him much more than this or any other letter can fully express.

The Commissioners, collectively known as the Meteorological Council, were a remarkably distinguished body of Fellows of the Royal Society, and when Darwin took the place of De la Rue, the members were men subsequently famous, as Sir Richard Strachey, Sir William Wharton, Sir George Stokes, Sir Francis Galton, Sir George Darwin, with E. J. Stone, a former Astronomer Royal for the Cape. . . .

I do not think that Darwin addressed himself spontaneously to meteorological problems, but he was always ready to help. He was very regular in his attendance at Council, and the minutes show that after Stokes retired, all questions involving physical measurement ormathematical reasoning were referred to him. There is a short and very characteristic report from him on the work of the harmonic analyser, and a considerable number upon researches by Mr. Dines or Sir G. Stokes on anemometers. It is hardly possible to exaggerate his aptitude for work of that kind. He could take a real interest in things that were not his own. He was full of sympathy and appreciation for efforts of all kinds, especially those of young men, and at the same time, using his wide experience, he was perfectly frank and fearless not only in his judgment but also in the expression of it. He gave one the impression of just protecting himself from boredom by habitual loyalty and a finely tempered sense of duty. My earliest recollection of him on the Council is the thrilling production of a new version of the Annual Report of the Council which he had written because the original had become more completely ‘scissors and paste’ than he could endure.

After the Office came into my charge in 1900, so long as he lived I never thought of taking any serious step without first consulting him, and he was always willing to help by his advice, by his personal influence and by his special knowledge. For the first six years of the time I held a college fellowship, with the peculiar condition of four public lectures in the University each year and no emolument. One year, when I was rather overdone, Darwin took the course for me, and devoted the lectures to Dynamical Meteorology. I believe he got it up for the occasion, for he professed the utmost diffidence about it, but the progresswhich we have made in recent years in that subject dates from those lectures and the correspondence which arose upon them.

In Council it was the established practice to proceed by agreement and not by voting; he had a wonderful way of bringing a discussion to a head by courageously ‘voicing’ the conclusion to which it led, and frankly expressing the general opinion without hurting anybody’s feelings. . . .

It is not easy to give expression to the powerful influence which he exercised upon all departments of official meteorology without making formal contributions to meteorological literature. He gave me a note on a curious point in the evaluation of the velocity equivalents of the Beaufort Scale, which is published in the Office Memoirs No. 180, and that is all I have to show in print, but he was in and behind everything that was done, and personally, I need hardly add, I owe to him much more than this or any other letter can fully express.

On May 6, 1904, the year of the South African meeting, he was elected President of the British Association.

On July 29, 1905, he embarked with his wife and his son Charles, and arrived on August 15 at the Cape, where he gave the first part of his Presidential Address. Here he had the pleasure of finding as Governor, Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson, whom he had known as a Trinity undergraduate. He was the guest of the late Sir David Gill, who remained a close friend for the rest of his life. George’s diary gives his itinerary—which shows thetrying amount of travel that he went through. A sample may be quoted:

August

Embark,

Arrive at Durban,

Mount Edgecombe,

Pietermaritzburg,

Colenso,

Ladysmith,

Johannesburg.

At Johannesburg he gave the second half of his Address. Then on by Bloemfontein, Kimberley, Bulawayo, to the Victoria Falls, where a bridge had to be opened. Then to Portuguese Africa on September 16, 17, where he made speeches in French and English. Finally he arrived at Suez on October 4, and got home October 18.

It was generally agreed that his Presidentship was a conspicuous success. The following appreciation is from the obituary notice inThe Observatory, January 1913, p. 58:

The Association visited a dozen towns, and at each halt its President addressed an audience partly new, and partly composed of people who had been travelling with him for many weeks. At each place this latter section heard with admiration a treatment of his subject wholly fresh and exactly adapted to the locality.

Such duties are always trying, and it should not be forgotten that tact was necessary in a country which only two years before was still in the throes of war.

In the autumn he received the honour of being made a K.C.B. The distinction was doubly valued as being announced to him by his friend Mr. Balfour, then Prime Minister.

From 1899 to 1900 he was President of the Royal Astronomical Society. One of his last Presidential acts was the presentation of the Society’s Medal to his friend M. Poincaré.

He had the unusual distinction of serving twice as President of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, once in 1890–92 and again 1911–12.

In 1891 he gave the Bakerian Lecture[182a]of the Royal Society, his subject being “Tidal Prediction.” This annual prælection dates from 1775, and the list of lecturers is a distinguished roll of names.

In 1897 he lectured at the Lowell Institute at Boston, and this was the origin of his book onTides, published in the following year. Of this Sir Joseph Larmor says[182b]that “it has taken rank with the semi-popular writings of Helmholtz and Kelvin as a model of what is possible in the exposition of a scientific subject.” It has passed through three English editions, and has been translated into many foreign languages.

During the last ten or fifteen years of his life George was much occupied with various International bodies,e.g.the International GeodeticAssociation, the International Association of Academies, the International Congress of Mathematicians, and the Seismological Congress.

With regard to the last named it was in consequence of George’s report to the Royal Society that the British Government joined the Congress. It was however with the Geodetic Association that he was principally connected.

Sir Joseph Larmor (Nature, December 12, 1912) gives the following account of the origin of the Association:

The earliest of topographic surveys, the model which other national surveys adopted and improved upon, was the Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom. But the great trigonometrical survey of India, started nearly a century ago, and steadily carried on since that time by officers of the Royal Engineers, is still the most important contribution to the science of the figure of the earth, though the vast geodetic operations in the United States are now following it closely. The gravitational and other complexities incident on surveying among the great mountain masses of the Himalayas early demanded the highest mathematical assistance. The problems originally attacked in India by Archdeacon Pratt were afterwards virtually taken over by the Royal Society, and its secretary, Sir George Stokes, of Cambridge, became from 1864 onwards the adviser and referee of the survey as regards its scientific enterprises. On the retirement of Sir George Stokes this position fell very largely to Sir George Darwin, whose relations with the India Office on this and other affairsremained close, and very highly appreciated, throughout the rest of his life.The results of the Indian survey have been of the highest importance for the general science of geodesy. . . . It came to be felt that closer co-operation between different countries was essential to practical progress and to coordination of the work of overlapping surveys.

The results of the Indian survey have been of the highest importance for the general science of geodesy. . . . It came to be felt that closer co-operation between different countries was essential to practical progress and to coordination of the work of overlapping surveys.

For the further history of George’s connection with the Association, I am indebted to the Secretary, Dr. van d. Sande Bakhuyzen.

On the proposal of the Royal Society the British Government, after having consulted the Director of the Ordnance Survey, in 1898, resolved upon the adhesion of Great Britain to the International Geodetic Association, and appointed as its delegate, G. H. Darwin. By his former researches and by his high scientific character, he, more than any other, was entitled to this position, which would afford him an excellent opportunity of furthering, by his recommendations, the study of theoretical geodesy. . .We cannot relate in detail his valuable co-operation as a member of the Council in the various transactions of the Association, for instance, on the junction of the Russian and Indian triangulations through Pamir, but we must gratefully remember his great service to the Association when, at his invitation, the delegates met in 1909 for the 16th General Conference in London and Cambridge.With the utmost care he prepared everything to render the Conference as interesting and agreeable as possible, and he fullysucceeded. Through his courtesy the foreign delegates had the opportunity of making the personal acquaintance of several members of the Geodetic staff of England and its colonies, and of other scientific men, who were invited to take part in the Conference; and when after four meetings in London the delegates went to Cambridge to continue their work, they enjoyed the most cordial hospitality from Sir George and Lady Darwin, who, with her husband, procured them in Newnham Grange happy leisure hours between their scientific labours.At this conference Darwin delivered various reports, and at the discussion on Hecker’s determination of the variation of the vertical by the attraction of the moon and sun, he gave an interesting account of the researches on the same subject made by him and his brother Horace more than 20 years ago, which unfortunately failed from the bad conditions of the places of observation.In 1912 Sir George, though already over-fatigued by the preparations for the Mathematical Congress in Cambridge, and the exertions entailed by it, nevertheless prepared the different reports on the geodetic work in the British Empire, but, alas, his illness prevented him from assisting at the conference at Hamburg, where they were presented by other British delegates. The conference thanked him, and sent him its best wishes, but at the end of the year the Association had to deplore the loss of the man who in theoretical geodesy as well as in other branches of mathematics and astronomy stood in the first rank, and whofor his noble character was respected and beloved by all his colleagues in the International Geodetic Association.

We cannot relate in detail his valuable co-operation as a member of the Council in the various transactions of the Association, for instance, on the junction of the Russian and Indian triangulations through Pamir, but we must gratefully remember his great service to the Association when, at his invitation, the delegates met in 1909 for the 16th General Conference in London and Cambridge.

With the utmost care he prepared everything to render the Conference as interesting and agreeable as possible, and he fullysucceeded. Through his courtesy the foreign delegates had the opportunity of making the personal acquaintance of several members of the Geodetic staff of England and its colonies, and of other scientific men, who were invited to take part in the Conference; and when after four meetings in London the delegates went to Cambridge to continue their work, they enjoyed the most cordial hospitality from Sir George and Lady Darwin, who, with her husband, procured them in Newnham Grange happy leisure hours between their scientific labours.

At this conference Darwin delivered various reports, and at the discussion on Hecker’s determination of the variation of the vertical by the attraction of the moon and sun, he gave an interesting account of the researches on the same subject made by him and his brother Horace more than 20 years ago, which unfortunately failed from the bad conditions of the places of observation.

In 1912 Sir George, though already over-fatigued by the preparations for the Mathematical Congress in Cambridge, and the exertions entailed by it, nevertheless prepared the different reports on the geodetic work in the British Empire, but, alas, his illness prevented him from assisting at the conference at Hamburg, where they were presented by other British delegates. The conference thanked him, and sent him its best wishes, but at the end of the year the Association had to deplore the loss of the man who in theoretical geodesy as well as in other branches of mathematics and astronomy stood in the first rank, and whofor his noble character was respected and beloved by all his colleagues in the International Geodetic Association.

Sir Joseph Larmor writes:[186]

Sir George Darwin’s last public appearance was as president of the fifth International Congress of Mathematicians, which met at Cambridge on August 22–28, 1912. The time for England to receive the congress having obviously arrived, a movement was initiated at Cambridge, with the concurrence of Oxford mathematicians, to send an invitation to the fourth congress held at Rome in 1908. The proposal was cordially accepted, and Sir George Darwin, asdoyenof the mathematical school at Cambridge, became chairman of the organising committee, and was subsequently elected by the congress to be their president. Though obviously unwell during part of the meeting, he managed to discharge the delicate duties of the chair with conspicuous success, and guided with great verve the deliberations of the final assembly of what turned out to be a most successful meeting of that important body.

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 emphaticallynotfrom 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’sReliquesand thePrologue to theCanterbury Tales. He used often to read Shakespeare to himself, I think generally the historical plays; also Chaucer,Don Quixotein Spanish, and all kind of books like Joinville’sLife of St. Louisin 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.

He had a passion for going everywhere and seeing everything; learning every language, knowing the technicalities of every trade; and all this emphaticallynotfrom 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’sReliquesand thePrologue to theCanterbury Tales. He used often to read Shakespeare to himself, I think generally the historical plays; also Chaucer,Don Quixotein Spanish, and all kind of books like Joinville’sLife of St. Louisin 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 sharingmy 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.

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.

His nephew Bernard, speaking of George’s way of taking pains to be friendly and forthcoming to anyone with whom he came in contact, says:

He was ready to take other people’s pleasantness and politeness at its apparent value and not to discount it. If they seemed glad to see him, he believed that theywereglad. If he liked somebody, he believed that the somebody liked him, and did not worryhimself by wondering whether they really did like him.

Of his energy we have evidence in theamountof material contained in his collected works. There was nothing dilatory about him, and here he again resembled his father, who had markedly the power of doing things at the right moment, and thus avoiding waste of time and discomfort to others. George had none of a characteristic which was defined in the case of Henry Bradshaw, as “always doing something else.” After an interruption he could instantly reabsorb himself in his work, so that his study was not kept as a place sacred to peace and quiet.

His wife is my authority for saying that although he got so much done, it was not by working long hours. Moreover, the days that he was away from home made large gaps in his opportunities for steady application. His diaries show in another way that his researches by no means took all his time. He made a note of the books he read, and these make a considerable record. Although he read much good literature with honest enjoyment, he had not a delicate or subtle literary judgment. Nor did he care for music. He was interested in travels, history, and biography, and as he could remember what he read or heard, his knowledge was wide in many directions. His linguistic power was characteristic. He read many European languages. I remember his translating a long Swedish paper for my father. And he took pleasure in the Platt Deutsch stories of Fritz Reuter.

The discomfort from which he suffered during the meeting at Cambridge of the International Congress of Mathematicians in August 1912 was, in fact, the beginning of his last illness. An exploratory operation showed that he was suffering from malignant disease. Happily he was spared the pain that gives its terror to this malady. His nature was, as we have seen, simple and direct, with a pleasant residue of the innocence and eagerness of childhood. In the manner of his death these qualities were ennobled by an admirable and most unselfish courage. As his vitality ebbed away his affection only showed the stronger. He wished to live, and he felt that his power of work and his enjoyment of life were as strong as ever, but his resignation to the sudden end was complete and beautiful. He died on December 7, 1912, and was buried at Trumpington.

Order. K.C.B. 1905.

Medals.[192a]

1883. Telford Medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

1884. Royal Medal.[192b]

1892. Royal Astronomical Society’s Medal.

1911. Copley Medal of the Royal Society.

1912. Royal Geographical Society’s Medal.

Offices.

Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Plumian Professor in the University.

Vice-President of the International Geodetic Association, Lowell Lecturer at Boston U.S. (1897).

Member of the Meteorological and Solar Physics Committees.

Past President of the Cambridge Philosophical Society,[193]Royal Astronomical Society, British Association.

Doctorates,etc.,of Universities.

Oxford, Dublin, Glasgow, Pennsylvania, Padua (Socio onorario), Göttingen, Christiania, Cape of Good Hope, Moscow (honorary member).

Foreign or Honorary Membership of Academies,etc.

Amsterdam (Netherlands Academy), Boston (American Academy), Brussels (Royal Society), Calcutta (Math. Soc.), Dublin (Royal Irish Academy), Edinburgh (Royal Society), Halle (K. Leop.-Carol. Acad.), Kharkov (Math. Soc.), Mexico (Soc. “Antonio Alzate”), Moscow (Imperial Society of the Friends of Science), New York, Padua, Philadelphia (Philosophical Society), Rome (Lincei), Stockholm (Swedish Academy), Toronto (Physical Society), Washington (National Academy), Wellington (New Zealand Inst.).

Correspondent of Academies,etc.,at

Acireale (Zelanti), Berlin (Prussian Academy), Buda Pest (Hungarian Academy), Frankfort (Senckenberg. Natur. Gesell.), Göttingen (Royal Society), Paris, St. Petersburg, Turin, Istuto Veneto, Vienna.[194]

AN ADDRESS TO A SOCIETY OF MORRIS DANCERSDECEMBER 21, 1914

According to theDictionary of Music[195]the military march is meant “not only to stimulate courage but also to ensure the orderly advance of troops.” In other words, military music serves to incite and to regulate movement. But these cannot always be discriminated. The tramp tramp of marching soldiers is ordered by the rhythm of the band. This is obvious, but we cannot say how far the bravery of the tune puts strength into tired legs, and this would be incitement,—and how far it is the unappeasable rhythm that forces the men to keep going, and this may perhaps be called regulation. There are occasions when the trumpet comes as a signal to troops waiting to make some sublime effort, and where the fierce imperious sound has a lift and a sting which perhaps no pre-concerted signal of a weaker type could give. This is an example of incitement, but in as much as it determines the moment of attack it is also a regulating agent.

Marching is still of importance,—in spite of the part taken by railways in modern strategy. I should like to know whether the magnificent marches of the Russians are made to the accompaniment of a band or of the regimental choir. One sees in our volunteer army the tendency to sing on the march. But it must be allowed that neither words or tunes are particularly inspiring. The Englishman is habitually afraid of being solemn, and though his marching songs may contain good things they are apt to be treated in a light spirit. There is one which includes the words, “Rule, Rule, Britannia!” and “God Save the Queen!” but these famous phrases serve as chorus to lighthearted fragments,e.g.nursery rhymes, such as “Little Miss Muffett.” I regret to add that even this classic is not respectfully used. It should run, “There came a great spider and sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffett away.” I forget the precise words of the parody, except its ending, “And Little Miss Muffett said, ‘Bother the creature!’” I still remember the fine effect of German soldiers heard many years ago singing the “Wacht am Rhein” on the march. Once, too, I listened to Zouaves, and no greater contrast can be imagined. It was hardly more than a murmur, a chatter of diverse scraps, and had no inspiring effect. These magnificent troops may need no artificial stimulus, but ordinary folk are certainly kept going by martial music. I remember, as a boy, marching to the tune of the “British Grenadiers,” which has foolish words, and is not striking from a musical point of view, but it seemed to take us along.This march-tune comes in finely in Rudyard Kipling’s story of theDrums of the Fore and Aft. An untried British regiment is cut up by Afghans and retires in a helter-skelter rush, leaving behind two boys of the Band, who strike up the “British Grenadiers” with the solitary squeak of a fife and the despairing roll of a drum. The answer comes in a great cheer from the Highlanders and Gurkas waiting on the heights, and in a charge that turns defeat into victory. I wish that Kipling had allowed the boys to survive, but the tragedy of their death is after all the effective close. To return to marching-tunes. For average people all that is needed is a well marked rhythm: “John Brown’s body,” etc., is an admirable march, though taken from its context of tramping soldiers it is hardly a fine tune. But so far as words are concerned it must be allowed that the refrain, “His soul goes marching along,” is in the right mood for a war song.

It may be objected that if all I want is rhythm I should be satisfied with instruments of percussion alone. To this I reply that the effect of drums is splendidly martial. I was at Aix at the outbreak of the war, and every day the regiment quartered there used to march out to the music of drums, and of bugles which played simple tunes on the common chord. When the buglers were out of breath, the drums thundered on with magnificent fire, until once more the simple and spirited fanfare came in with its brave out-of-doors flavour—a romantic dash of the hunting song, and yet with something of the seriousness of battle. And indeed this is thesort of melody that suits the dauntless spirit of our allies. As I watched these men, so soon to fight for their country, I was reminded of that white-faced boy pictured by Stevenson, striding over his dead comrades, the roll of his drum leading the living to victory or death. Drums are said (incorrectly I believe) to be made of donkey’s skin, and Stevenson imagines how, after death, the poor beast takes this magical revenge for the blows received in life, by leading cruel man to destruction. The old English military music seems to have been played by drums alone. King Charles I issued a warrant in the following words:[198a]“Whereas . . . the March of this our nation so famous in all honourable achievements and glorious warres of this our Kingdom in forraigne parts was through the negligence and carelessness of drummers . . . so altered and changed from the ancient gravity and majestic thereof as it was in danger utterly to have been lost and forgotten. . . .” He therefore wills and commands drummers to play only what is recorded in the curious old notation of that day. It must be remembered that drums and trumpets had something of the sacredness of Royalty in the 17th century. No one was allowed to play them in public without a license from the Sergeant Trumpeter,[198b]an officer who certainly existed a few years ago, and may, for all I know, still survive.In the 17th century it was a post of some dignity, and gave its holder the title of Esquire.

During the great retreat in the winter of 1914 the effect of music was magnificently illustrated. Mr. Conan Doyle[199]writes, “Exhausted as the troops were, there could he no halt or rest until they had extricated themselves from the immediate danger. At the last point of human endurance they still staggered on through the evening and the night time, amid roaring thunder and flashing lightning, down the St. Quentin road. Many fell from fatigue, and having fallen continued to sleep. . . . In the case of some of the men the collapse was so complete that it was almost impossible to get them on. Major Tom Bridges, of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoons being sent to round up and hurry forward 250 stragglers at St. Quentin, found them nearly comatose with fatigue. With quick wit he bought a toy drum, and accompanied by a man with a penny whistle he fell them in and marched them, laughing in all their misery, down the high road towards Ham.” When he stopped he found that the men stopped also, so he was compelled to march and play the whole way to Roupy.

In Sir Henry Newbolt’sSong of the Great Retreat(The Times, Dec. 16, 1914), this triumphant success is described:

“Cheerly goes the dark road, cheerly goes the night,Cheerly goes the blood to keep the beat:Half a thousand dead men marching on to fight,With a little penny drum to lift their feet.”

This song ought to be especially interesting to our Society, because the effect of a small drum and a penny whistle is roughly the same as that of the pipe and tabor, and these are the traditional instruments for English Folk Dances. It is perhaps worth noting that they must in old days have been used in war, for there is an illustration in an ancient manuscript of a taborer piping at the head of a body of troops marching out from a town.

Man is a social animal, and his natural strength lies in community of action with his fellows. It is this which gives music its power over masses of men, the pulsation of the drum, the blare of the answering trumpets, or the strident voice of the bagpipe cry to them in tones which cannot be misunderstood, binding them into a brotherhood of courage and obedience. But a society of Morris Dancers does not need to be reminded of the noble effect of human movement controlled by music. The word ‘caper’ has somewhat ridiculous associations, but we have learned to respect it for what it implies: the finely ordered strenuous movement of strong bodies leaping in rhythmic dance. It suggests something pagan and prehistoric, a physical religion of astonishing beauty. Some of our Morris men are now giving all the vigour of their young bodies to a great and just cause. Let us wish them a victorious home-coming.

It is not difficult to sympathise with what Dr. Birkbeck aimed at in founding the College which bears his name. His idea seems to have been, that whatever a man’s calling may be, he is the better for accurate knowledge of the things with which he deals. This is a sufficiently obvious statement. But if for the word ‘accurate’ we substitute ‘scientific,’ it is no longer a platitude—at least it is not so in the ears of the semi-educated. For we can still find people who believe in the “practical man” as opposed to one whom they probably call a scientist. One would like to know more of the conception of science formed by the unscientific. They are probably unaware that science is eminently practical in asserting that only to be true which rests on wide and accurate generalisation. It is also practical wisdom to hold, as science does, that truth is temporary and relative, and is in fact merely the best conclusion that can be drawn in the present state of knowledge. To many people science is wearisome and somewhat ridiculous, and these qualities appear in the naturalist of fiction. Thus when even George Eliot draws a coleopterist, he is made a feeble old man shuffling to and fro among hisridiculous beetles. And on the French stage I have seen a botanist treated in the same spirit.

Positiveness and bumptiousness are also supposed to be our attributes. In the ‘New Republic’ the characters said to represent Huxley and Clifford are completely disguised by their pompous pretentiousness.

It is not difficult to describe the ideals of science, but it is only too easy to fall short of them. It is easy for instance to become a sectarian, to belong to a school, and to be literally incapable of fairness towards the opposition. This was plainly seen at the incoming of evolution, and it was one of the many glories of Sir Charles Lyell that he could accept the ‘Origin of Species,’ and that, in the words of Hooker, he could under-pin his work with an evolutionary foundation and find his edifice stronger than ever. But we need not consider the battles of giants; we are much more likely to be concerned with the mentally dwarfed or deformed—with the dangerous man who makes positive statements on insufficient data, or suffers from that other vice of not being able to confess ignorance. The only lectures which impressed me, as an undergraduate at Cambridge, were those of the late Sir George Humphry; and his most striking words were confessions of complete ignorance about many parts of physiology. Here is an instance of an opposite state of things, of a want of courage. An eminent chemist was asked why common salt thrown on the fire gives a blue flame. Now the chemist was a German, and having been brought up in that land of stoves, probably had notperformed an experiment so easily made in the home of open fires. So he rashly answered, “It does not burn blue, it is impossible, sodium-salts give a yellow flame.” On this my friend fetched the salt and threw a handful on to the glowing coals—with the result that the eminent chemist rose up and fled in silence from the room. He gave an admirable example of how not to behave. He ought not in the first place to have denied the facta priori, and when he was convicted he should have been glad to learn.

It has been said that in scientific work accuracy is the most valuable quality and the hardest to attain. Accuracy alone may strike us as a dull quality to be so highly rated. When a given result has been obtained in eleven successive experiments, and fails on the twelfth occasion, it is the accurate-minded man who makes a wise use of the failure. It ought to arouse in us a flame of curiosity, lighting in us a whole posse of theories, which force us to vary our procedure and finally enable us to solve the difficulty.

Most of us are inclined to treat an unexpected result in a cavalier spirit, pushing it aside as “only an exception,” whereas it should be received as possibly a personage of distinction in disguise, and not as a rude disturber of our pet ideas.

A class of experimentalists exists from whom we all suffer—namely, cooks. How happy we should be if they possessed this lively desire to understand their own lapses from good cookery! It may be urged in excuse, that although the essence of cooking is the application of heat to food,not one cook in a thousand has a thermometer in her oven. I hope that some of the ladies who have in these laboratories learned to believe in accuracy, will become missionaries among the ignorant and insist on this simple reform.

There is a type of accuracy of a very different kind which may become an actual vice. For instance, the desire to weigh things to 1–10 mg. which should only have been weighed to a centigram, measuring to 1–10 mm., and calculating averages to several places of decimals. In such a science as Botany this may be positive waste of time. Sachs, the great German botanist, in whose laboratory I worked, was never tired of complaining of this “sogenannte Genauigkeit,” (this so-called accuracy). I am told that Lord Rayleigh, whose physical inquiries demand in some cases excessive and minute accuracy, has a wonderful instinct for knowing when and where he may relax his methods.

I have been compelled to use the words ‘science’ and ‘scientific’ because these terms have become firmly adherent to a group of subjects such as Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Botany, etc., and cannot now be detached from them. Unfortunately ‘scientific’ is used in another sense as implying accuracy of experimental method and in deduction from results. So that in calling ourselves scientific men we run the risk of seeming to claim a monopoly of method, as though we pretended to be somehow superior to the trained workers in other branches. The current use of the word seems therefore to cast unjust suspicion on literature. I wish thatthe wordsciencecould be restored to its original meaning of knowledge, or the art of knowing; but words (like organisms) are evolved, and against evolution the gods fight in vain. In any case I hope it will be believed that in speaking of knowledge I have taken instances from what is usually called science, not out of disrespect to literature, but like Dr. Johnson in a different affair—from ignorance.

I imagine Dr. Birkbeck to have had no idea that this institution would be so extensively used for preparing people for examinations. I doubt whether he would have liked it, but respect to the pious memory of a founder may be exaggerated, and since there is no getting rid of examinations, the next best thing is to make the art of coaching as little harmful as may be to pupil and teacher. I do not mean to speak slightingly of coaching as a whole, for a great deal of it is only a very skilful way of imparting knowledge, but it will be allowed that some of it is not educative in a broad sense.

You will remember that Mr. Brooke, inMiddlemarch, was in the habit of mildly investigating questions which he always threw over because he foresaw they would “carry him too far.” I confess to feeling very like Mr. Brooke when I attempt to balance the interests of teacher and student. In that comfortable period, the 18th century, things were all in favour of the teacher. The poet Gray, who was Professor of History at Cambridge, could never decide whether to lecture in Latin or English, and ended by never lecturing at all.

It is now easier to find cases where the teacheris the victim and slave of his pupils, and has no time or strength to continue his own education.

This has at least two bad results, and probably more than that number: (1) From want of time for reading the teacher can hardly avoid falling behind in a rapidly progressive subject such as one of the natural sciences, and consequently the University or College that enslaves him is injuring its own property. (2) He has no time to do any original work, and this is even worse for him (and therefore, as before, for the College). He ceases to be on intimate terms with the plants or animals or chemical substances with which he has to deal, and his teaching must necessarily lose that vigour and freshness that comes from first-hand personal knowledge. It is downright cruelty to deny time for research to those who vehemently desire to add something to the fabric of human knowledge.

The hampered teacher reminds me of a certain migratory bird living with clipped wings in a Zoological Garden: when the migrating season came round the unfortunate prisoner started to walk, and was to be seen pressing its breast against the bars at the north end of its pen. I hope that nowadays all Colleges realise that they must not prison their birds, but give them the means of satisfying their natural instinct for fresh and self-gained knowledge. The students are in one way better off than their masters, since laboratory work is generally new to them and has therefore some of the charm of discovery.

In what I have said to-night I have confined myself to Natural Science, in which alone I havehad experience of teaching or examining. On the literary side of things I am, I fear, a Philistine, orenfant terrible. I belong to that class of persons (which has at least the merit of being very large) who have hardly opened a Greek or Latin book since the day they passed their Little-go.

I grudge the time that is given at school to making small boys groan over books not well suited to them, while French and German are, or were in my day, all but untaught. If I had had good oral teaching in modern languages (such, for instance, as that given at the Perse School in Cambridge) I could forgive my teachers. We should without tears have learned to talk fluently and write correctly in at least one modern language, and for the sake of this I could perhaps have borne the weariness of Greek and Latin grammar. If it were not for the tyranny of examinations, classical teaching might be put to its proper use, which is not to serve as an instrument of torture, but to enable us to read ancient authors.

I would teach Latin and Greek only to older boys, and by the method in which we all learn a modern language—that is when we have the advantage of being at once teacher and learner. I mean by reading quickly, with a translation if necessary; at first without understanding half of what we read, but gradually picking up words as we go along. This is how I learned to read easy Italian. By the advice of the late Henry Sidgwick I began on a bad Italian translation of a French novel, because such a version, being full of French idioms more or less literally translated, iseasier than idiomatic Italian. The right book to begin on is a good murder story, such as one of Gaboriau’s, which are fortunately to be had in bad Italian. What would an old fashioned teacher of Greek and Latin have said to this! In my own case I feel that thedifficultyof reading the classics was good discipline, and so far educational. In Henry Sidgwick’s method one is carried along by the detective business, and learns Italian words as a child picks up its own language, by context and re-iteration. It will be said that this method is not applicable to Latin and Greek, and that even if it were so, it would not be educative. I confess I do not expect my words to sink into the hearts of the teachers of what are unkindly called the dead languages. The great Moloch of examination has constantly to be supplied with human children, to say nothing of grown-up people. Some escape, but how many are reduced to ashes?

I have said nothing about what should have been my theme, namely, the beginning of the College year. To my thinking beginnings have something of the melancholy that seems more appropriate to endings. Sad associations tend to adhere to all that has the quality of periodicity. I for one feel this when spring once more puts on the familiar look with which our childhood and youth seemed to mingle on equal terms, but which upbraids us now we are no longer young.

And in a more work-a-day spirit Monday morning is sad. I think this is so because the conception Next Week is full of the ghosts of dead resolutions. No doubt it was on Monday mornings that Mr.Shandy renewed his vow to have the hinge of the parlour door mended, which I think remained unrepaired to the end of the book.

But after all, this gloomy point of view belongs to the onlooker, not to the actors in the rhythm of things. Each particular Monday is a new-born entity, and doubtless feels a pleasurable excitement in its brief life. And to the actual snowdrops and winter aconites that pierce the cold ground, spring is a new and glorious experience. In this academic springtime (which chances to occur in autumn) the onlooker need have no morbid feelings, only perhaps a touch of envy of those whose College life begins to-day.

To those who have never made experiments on plants it may seem that ‘picturesque’ is an odd term to apply to laboratory methods. But to an experimentalist the adjective does not seem overstrained. There is not merely the pleasure of seeing a prediction verified—that may be experienced in more everyday matters. There is a peculiar delight in the discovery of a method of revealing some detail in the natural history of living things. I remember vividly the pleasure which I felt when I first tried the experiment onSorghum, described in the essay on the Movements of Plants in this volume.[210]I hoped that the seedlings would curve in the elaborate manner shown in Fig. 4. But I had so little expectation of success that I did not explain the object of the trial to my laboratory assistant, and it came as a shock of delight when he told me that the seedlings had “curled up like corkscrews.” I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say, that this result is a picturesque illustration of the distribution of gravitational sensitiveness in plants. The instances in the present essay are not concerned with the movements of plants, and are so far less interesting, but I think the reader will not refuse them the same adjective.

We all know that in plants—from the smallest weed to the giant trees of America—there flows a stream of water from the root to the topmost leaf. Nevertheless, it is an experience to have ocular proof of this life-giving current. A branch of laurel is so arranged that it has to suck up the water it needs through a coarse thermometer tube, dipping into a beaker. The laurel does not wither, and we know therefore that it is continuously supplied with water. If the beaker is removed we shall see the absorption, for the thermometer tube does not remain full of water; a minute column of air is seen at its lower end which rapidly increases in size, and finally when the tube is emptied of its water-content, bubbles of air escape one after another into the larger tube, which contains the cut end of the branch. This, the simplest possible experiment, is nevertheless a vivid ocular proof of the laurel’s power of absorbing water. It can be shown that the sucking power of the branch depends on its leaves, for if these are removed the rate of the current is very greatly diminished. It can also be proved that it depends on some quality of the leaf surface, for if a new specimen is taken, and if the lower sides of its leaves are rubbed with vaseline, the rate of absorption will be seen to diminish very greatly. Greasing the upper surface of the leaves does not produce this result, and when we examine the two surfaces it is found that the lower one is riddled with innumerable microscopic holes (stomata), while the upper side of the leaf has no such apertures. The stomata in fact are the arbiters of what shall pass in or out of the body of the leaf;they are the gate-keepers who regulate both export and import. They are known by actual inspection (with a microscope) to close at night: the result of this is that the evaporation of the leaves is much slower at night, and this is true when allowance has been made for the fact that evaporation is also checked at night by the dampness of the air.

Fig. 7. The Porometer

The microscopical inspection of stomata is not a completely satisfactory method of discovering to what degree they are open. It has, however, been my good fortune to resuscitate and simplify a method of studying the stomatal condition. The method was many years ago tried in a hopelessly cumbersome form by a German, but never came into use. My apparatus is described in theProceedings of the Royal Society,[212]and is known as thePorometer. Its essential part is shown in Fig. 7. It consists of a funnel-shaped tube, having a broad flange, which is cemented on to the stomata-bearing surface of a leaf. The leaf is represented by the obliquely shaded object and is enormously magnified. To the upper orifice of the funnel is fixed a rubber tube, and by means of it steady suction can be supplied. The result is that a current of air is drawn through the stomata into the leaf, and then out of the leaf into the cavity of the porometer. The rate of this current is an index of the degree to which the stomata are open. With this apparatus a number of interesting points can be determined.

Fig. 8. Curve of Porometer readings in light and darkness (black)

Fig. 8 shows the effect of alternate periods of light and darkness. The fall of the curve representspartial closure, and is seen to occur in the periods of darkness (black), and to rise when the plant is re-illumined. These changes are necessarily accompanied by rise and fall in the evaporation of the leaf, but into the question of the accuracy of this correlation I shall not enter.

There are other methods of demonstrating the movements of the stomata. Stahl had the happy inspiration of making use of the colour-changes of cobalt chloride. A piece of filter paper soaked in a 5 p.c. solution of this salt is blue when dried, and turns pink in damp air. A dry piece of this material, applied with proper precaution to the stomata-bearing surface of a leaf, rapidly changes to pink if the stomata are open. When, however, the same trial is made on the upper surface of a leaf, where stomata do not occur, no such change occurs. If two leaves are treated at the same time, one in the normal position and the other upside down, it is delightful to watch the appearance of a pink picture of that leaf whose stomatic surface is in contact with the paper, while no such change takes place over that which exposes no stomata to the tell-tale material. Another method was discovered by the accident of finding in an old house in Wales a Chinese figure of a man, cut out of a thin shaving of horn, which writhed and twisted when placed on the hand. It was clearly very sensitive to moisture, and it seemed possible that horn-shavings might be used to test the condition of the stomata. The first difficulty was to obtain a supply of this material. Having discovered from the P.O. Directory that there were twohorn-pressers in London I proceeded to visit one of them somewhere in Hoxton. He turned out to be of a highly suspicious disposition, but his wife had more discernment, and persuaded him that I was a harmless customer, with no designs on trade secrets, and I finally obtained what I wanted. A delicate strip of horn was fixed to a little block of cork and placed on a leaf, and to my delight showed the stomata to be open by violently curving upwards. It was only necessary to fix a graduated arc to the cork, and to fasten a delicate hair on to the horn so as to serve as index. The instrument is not of course accurately quantitative, but it does at least show whether the stomata are nearly shut, moderately open, or widely so. Rough as it is I found it good enough for determining a number of interesting facts in the physiology of stomata.[215a]

I now pass on to a different subject, the all-important process on which the life of green plants depends, an act therefore by which our own existence and that of all other animals is conditioned. I mean the process known asassimilation. This is the truly miraculous feat of using as a source of food the carbonic acid gas (CO2) which exists in minute quantities in the atmosphere. The plant is in fact a carbon-catching machine, and the machine is driven by the energy of the sun, and can therefore only work in light. The eminent Russian botanist, Timiriazeff, in a lecture on this subject[215b]before the Royal Society, made a witty use ofGulliver’s Travels—a book not commonly quotedas an authority in scientific matters. He pointed out that the philosophers of Lagado, who were extracting sun-beams from cucumbers, were not doing anything absurd. On the contrary, since the cucumbers had been built with the help of sunshine, it was a reasonable expectation that energy corresponding to the sunshine should be obtainable. This indeed is what we do when we drive a steam engine by burning coal which ages ago was built by vegetable machinery driven by sunlight.

It is possible to show the existence of this process by very simple experiments. The most direct, but the least interesting, experiment is to take two similar plants, and expose plantAto an atmosphere containing CO2 whileBis in air freed from that gas. Both specimens are placed in bright light, and after a sufficient interval of time their leaves are tested for the presence of starch. This is a simple matter; the green colouring matter is washed out of them by means of alcohol, and they are then placed in a dilute solution of iodine, which has the property of staining starch purple. It is always pleasant to see the leaf that had been supplied with CO2 turn blue, while the starved leaf remains a hungry yellow.

Some of the prettiest methods of demonstrating this process depend, not on the manufacture of starch in the leaf, but on the fact that an assimilating plant sets free oxygen, by breaking up the molecule CO2, building the carbon (C) into its own tissues, and letting the oxygen (O) go free. A beautiful method was discovered on these lines byEngelmann, which I was never tired of seeing year after year in my Cambridge class. Defibrinated bullock’s blood is freed from air by means of an air pump and charged with CO2. In the course of this process it acquires the dingy tint of venous blood. A single leaf of the American weed (Elodea) is mounted on a glass slide in a drop of this blood and covered by an ordinary cover slip. Then comes the dramatic moment: the preparation is exposed to sunshine, and in 3 or 4 minutes a delicate scarlet border begins to appear round the leaf and grows rapidly, making a curious sunset effect in contrast with dingy purple of the venous blood. The meaning is very clear; the Elodea leaf in sunshine took the carbon from the CO2, and the oxygen thus set free gave the venous blood the scarlet hue characteristic of the arterial condition. Professor Farmer has designed a striking method based on another well-known experiment of Engelmann’s. A drop of water containing the products of decay, and therefore swarming with bacteria, supplies the test. A drop of this fluid is placed on a glass slip, one or two delicate leaves of a green water plant (Elodea) are added, and a square of thin glass is placed on it. Round the edges of the cover-slip the preparation must be sealed with a preparation of wax, which melts at a low temperature, and when cold serves to prevent the preparation drying; it also isolates it from the surrounding atmosphere. After making sure under the microscope that the bacteria are in active movement, the glass slip is placed in the dark for some 3 or 4 hours. It is then examined, and the bacteria will be found to haveceased to move because they and the leaves between them have consumed the oxygen dissolved in the water, and bacterial activity being dependent on oxygen naturally came to an end. The preparation is placed under the microscope and illumined with bright incandescent gas, and after a short time the bacteria begin to stir and are soon once more whirling in their insensate dance. The reason is obvious—the green leaves under the influence of light were able to seize the carbon from the CO2, and the O thus set free put the bacteria in motion. The bacterial dance is therefore evidence of the act of assimilation carried on by the Elodea leaf.

Yet another method is worth mention, viz., that of Boussingault. The plant is placed in an inverted glass vessel resting in a dish of water, and is filled with hydrogen mixed with a percentage of CO2. Inside the vessel a fragment of phosphorus is suspended, and as a small amount of oxygen is sure to be mixed with the hydrogen the phosphorus will be oxygenated and white fumes will fill the vessel. The observer must wait until these clouds have subsided, which may need a couple of hours. This must take place in the dark, and as soon as the atmosphere is clear, the whole preparation is placed in bright light, when obvious clouds will again appear—a proof that oxygen has been set free by the assimilation of the green plants. With this example I must bring my short series of experiments to a close, with the hope that my readers may not deny that they are picturesque.

“The more I see of men, the more I like dogs.”—Archbishop Whately.[219]

Why is it that some people do not like dogs? There are those who dislike other people’s dogs just as they dislike strange children. This is a point of view which is comprehensible though unattractive. Still, in comparison with those who do not like dogs at all this class seem positively amiable. I knew a lady with the most perfect understanding of the qualities of human beings, whether bad or good, yet she had no sympathy with dogs. She would be kind to them, as an external duty to all living things, but a dog had absolutely no place in her heart. What made this blindness seem all the more incomprehensible was the fact that she could love a bullfinch; she could not therefore plead that she loved humanity so much that she had no love left for beings of another sort. After all, it may be that not to care for dogs is no more a blemish than a lack of musical ear, which is not a sign of general dullness of artistic perception since it is found in some poets. We must accordingly allow that not to love dogs is not a sign of a black heart ora debased nature. A dog lover will grant this to be an unavoidable intellectual conclusion, but in the secret corners of his mind he will feel something more hostile than mere Christian pity for these emotionally deformed people. If he holds Erewhonian doctrines he would like to send for the family straightener, and bear with fortitude the punishment inflicted on his friends and relations.

I fear that we, the dog lovers, are, by those who do not share our tastes, held to be unbalanced persons, who intrude their passions on the reasonable and well bred. They object to us as victims of perverted instincts, who talk unknown dog-language in and out of season. It is not clear to me why we care so much for dogs. Is it, in truth, an exaggeration, or an offshoot of that love of the helpless young of our own kind which natural selection develops in social animals? This is not necessarily maternal, as we see in the story of the heroic male baboon, who risked his life in saving a young one from a pack of baying hounds.[220a]Or is it an instinct developed in a hunting tribe—a blind tendency to take good care of the food-providers (at the expense of starving aunts and grandmothers), such as we see among the Fuegians, who explained that, “Doggies catch otters—old women no.”[220b]

However this may be, it is I think certain that the love of dogs is an unreasoning passion, having all the force of an instinct. In a story by MissWilkins we see how the love even of a cat may come to be regarded as a human right or need. The old woman who had lost her cat (he afterwards emerged half starved from the cellar), rebelled against the will of God. She allowed that the happiness of husband and children was possibly not to be expected by everyone, but “therewascats enough to go all round.”

I think it impossible to account for the especial affection that we bear to certain dogs. Dogs are, as I have said, in a degree like our children; they come to us and they have to be tended, fed, and guarded, and in these services we learn to love them. And when our affection is reflected back to us from the thing we love, it gains an especially touching quality. In the case of dogs our affection is certainly not a response to any inherent charm obvious to all the world—and here again they resemble children. The dog I loved best was an inferior Irish terrier, who gave me much trouble and anxiety. He was constantly fighting; he barked fiercely at innocent visitors. He killed chickens, and for this I had to beat him cruelly, tie him up and leave him trembling with a dead victim round his neck, a punishment for which I still feel remorse, though it saved him from being shot as a criminal, and cured him of his murderous tendency for many years. Pat was not a clever dog, and when striving to learn certain simple tricks he used to fall into abysses of miserable stupidity, and give up all hope of winning the biscuit earned by his fellow-dog, a Scotch terrier, with all the intelligent certainty of his nation. Pathad one attractive physical quality; he was perfectly sweet and clean; indeed his adoring family compared his scent to that of new mown hay; he had also a smooth head, which was compared, by one enthusiastic admirer, to a putting-green. He had the attractive and not very common quality of grinning—tucking up his lips and showing the teeth, but producing the effect of a smile, and expressing a shy and apologetic frame of mind.

Pat lived with a bad tempered Scotch terrier called Whisk, whom I liked for his strong character and intellectual acquirements, but I had no great affection for him. He could not bear being spoken to or even looked at while he ate his dinner, and would growl with his mouth full, in a terrific manner, if so disturbed. In the same ferocious spirit he would growl and snap if his basket was accidentally kicked when he was dozing in the evening, and however much we apologised he would take each expression of regret as a fresh insult, and answer them all with growls, which gradually died away in sleep.

We only once had a big dog, and he was not a success though he was an agreeable person. We bought him and his brother, two very fat mastiff puppies, at North Berwick, and brought them south. The one pleasant incident in the journey was the question of a German in Edinburgh station: “Madam, who are these dogs?” We gave away one and kept the other, who bore the magnificent name of Tantallon, soon abbreviated into Tan. He had many friendly habits, but they were on too large a scale for domestic life. He had, for instance,a way of placing a dirty paw on the table cloth at meals, and he knocked down street children by trying to lick their faces and (so rumour said) by wagging his tail. He frightened cab horses into hysterics, and their drivers fell off and claimed damages. He ate with enjoyment the embroidered perambulator-cushion of a neighbour, who was discovered looking on while Tan tore strips off the cushion with that powerful upward movement of the head and neck which few cushions can withstand. Finally poor Tan had to be given away, and was lost sight of.

These rough outlines of the characters of some of our dogs are meant to show that the reasons for loving dogs are not patent, and that we cannot complain if the words, used by a little girl inPunchtowards a couple of earwigs, should be applied to us and our dogs, “Nasty creatures! I cannot think how they can care for each other.”

Stevenson’s essay[223]onThe Character of Dogsis not entirely satisfactory. It is surely a one-sided view of the dog that “he is vainer than man, singularly greedy of notice, singularly intolerant of ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to the degree of frenzy, and radically devoid of truth.” It is hardly possible that he should be vainer than man; and in the dog, vanity is a far simpler and more lovable thing than the complex and offensive passion in his master. His greed for notice and his jealousy are part of his great love for his master. I do not remember that Stevenson ever speaks ofthe passionate love (not for mankind, but for one special person) which burns in the heart of a dog. It is a singular omission—and I cannot but think it intentional. If so he was wise, for it certainly does not lend itself to the manner which Stevenson adopts towards dogs. No doubt I may be led into sentimentality and general wearifulness in attempting to describe what seems to me the most striking characteristic of dogs—their great and enduring power of loving. It may be that “the day of an intelligent small dog is passed in the manufacture and laborious communication of falsehood.” But he does not lie when he says quite plainly how greatly he loves his master. Nor do I agree that a small spoiled dog would prate interminably, and still about himself. I think he would say, “I love you” rather often, but that bears repetition. I know a Schipperke whose main interest in life is his dinner, but when his mistress was ill he had only two desires, to lie on her bed and to bite the doctor for approaching her. He had to be dragged out for a walk instead of eagerly begging for one. Was this an elaborate falsehood? Was it pretence? Was it conventionality?

A dog can hardly be expected to plead guilty when detected in crime. He jumps off the forbidden bed when he hears someone coming, and, being unaware that the warm place on the counterpane will betray him, he assumes a calm and happy air. But this is a lie so natural that I for one cannot blame the liar.

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