[pages 184-5]

August 11, 1868.—To Freshwater; engage bedroom over little shop, and to the Darwins. Dr. Hooker in lower room writing away at his Address; going to put "Peter Bell's" primrose into it and wants the exact words. Upstairs Mrs. Darwin, Miss D. and Mr. Charles Darwin himself,—tall, yellow, sickly, very quiet. He has his meals at his own times, sees people or not as he chooses, has invalid's privileges in full, a great help to a studious man.

August 12.—Freshwater. Pack bag, to Farringford. Breakfast in the study, the boys pleasant; Lionel back from bathing; A. T. [Alfred Lord Tennyson], letter from America for autograph. Mrs. T., "Lionel going to Eton." She dislikes Darwin's theory. I sit in study: A.T. teaching Hallam Latin—Catiline. Charles Darwin expected, but comes not. Has been himself called "The Missing Link." Luncheon. Then T. and I walk into croquet-ground, talking of Christianity.

William Allingham (1824-1889) was an Irish poet.

[pages 239, 274]

Tuesday, October 5, 1875 — Back from Eastbourne — at C.'s 3.20. Carlyle and Mary back from Keston Lodge. C. and I go out, rain, shelter in public-house, allowed with scant civility, and then go back for his coat. Carlyle never carried an umbrella; in wet weather a waterproof coat. He very seldom caught cold. C.— We had a successful stay at Keston. Saw Sir John Lubbock; Charles Darwin several times. I had not seen him for twenty years. He is a pleasant jolly-minded man (I thought this a very curious phrase), with much observation and a clear way of expressing it. Has long been an invalid. I asked him if he thought there was a possibility of men turning into apes again. He laughed much at this, and came back to it over and over again.

February 22, 1879. — Drove with Carlyle. — Darwin and Haeckel. C.: "For Darwin personally I have great respect; but all that of Origin of Species, etc., is of little interest to me. What we desire to know is, who is the Maker? and what is to come to us when we have shuffled off this mortal coil. Whoever looks into himself must be aware that at the centre of things is a mysterious Demiurgus — who is God, and who cannot in the least be adequately spoken of in any human words."

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), English author.