Volume 93 — A DOWN-Y PHILOSOPHER;

Or, Memoirs of a Missing Link.

Seal making a Deep Impression.

I've no particular reason to think an account of my life will interest anybody. That being so, I don't know why I write it. But I do. I suppose it's Chance. H-xl-y (who is such fun!) calls my Memoir, because I'm a F.R.S., a case of "Fellow-De-Se."

Talking of Chance, everything that has ever happened to me has been Chance!

For instance, what could have been more a matter of luck than my choosing a house at Down? H-xl-y says something about being "Down on my luck." (What a master of style old H-xl-y is, to be sure!)

Then there was that voyage on the Sea-Mew. If it hadn't been that my Uncle kicked me six times round his garden at Shrewsbury, because I said "I'd be jiggered if I went," I don't believe I should ever have had courage to accept the appointment of Naturalist to the expedition. That voyage gave me an object in life. My nose had made me an object in life before that (vide Portrait), but Natural Selection triumphed over my nose, and so I became in due time famous, and an Ag-nose-tic!

My Schooldays.

At school I was an exceptionally naughty boy. I cannot conceive what induced me to tell another little boy that I had often produced crab-apples by taking a dead crab and burying it in an orchard, but I did. My little friend, I recollect, didn't believe me, and indeed pulled my nose (always a sore point with me, but he made its point much sorer) for telling what he called "beastly crams." We had a fight, I also remember. Perhaps I ought to call it a "struggle for existence." He was much the "fittest," and he survived. I got licked.

Choice of Calling.

My extreme naughtiness continued unabated when I became a young man. Nobody expected I should ever "do" anything—except six months' hard labour! At Cambridge I was so shockingly "rowdy," that my father declared, there was no alternative but to send me into the Church. But as I was hunting with the College drag at the hour when I ought to have been in for my Ordination Examination, the Bishop failed to see matters in the same light. I then decided to be a Doctor. If I had stuck to this profession I fancy that my turn for trying experiments would have landed me in some exalted position—possibly at Newgate. As it was, after attending a lecture on Surgery, I was discovered in the local Hospital trying to cut off a patient's leg on an entirely new principle, with a pair of scissors and an old meat-saw, and I was nearly "run in" for manslaughter. I decided to give up Medicine, and a slight shindy over a supposed error of mine in calculating a score having prevented my becoming a success as a Public-house Billiard-marker, I thought I would make my mark in another way, as a breeder of race-horses. Being, however, forcibly chucked out of Newmarket Heath one day for an alleged irregularity which I never could understand, I began really to wonder what profession I was fitted to adorn.

I become a Naturalist.

It was at this time that the Captain of the Sea-Mew offered me that post of which I have before spoken. I accepted it, and began at once to lower the record in sea-sickness, being never once well on board ship for three whole years! It was a new experience, and altered me a good deal. From being rowdy and idle I became quiet and abnormally diligent. If you don't believe this, ask H-xl-y (who is such fun!). On returning to England I at once settled Down, and began to write books.

The "Origin of Species."

This work is my title to fame. It only took me thirty-three years and six months to write. I felt quite glad when it was finished. People who have read it tell me they feel the same, The row it caused was frightful! If you want to see "Soapy Sam's" slashing Quarterly Review article pulverised, read H-xl-y's reply. (But, query—isn't this scientific log-rolling?) The remark which was made, after perusing the book, by that eminent Botanist, my friend Professor Hookey, was—"Walker!" But he was soon converted.

My Way of Working.

This, also, can't interest anybody, yet I give it. I get up at 4 A.M., and take a walk. From 7 to 10 I work. After dinner—with champagne—I take another stroll. I have made most astonishing scientific discoveries at this time. I could, point out the exact spot in the road where I became convinced that the whole country had been elevated sixteen feet since the morning! H-xl-y, who was with me, quite agreed, and said that we must all have been elevated at the same time, without knowing it.

My Favourite Authors.

These are, of course, Lyell on Lias, and Hookey on Herbaceous Foraminifera. They are far superior to Shakspeare, who bores me. I like novels, the trashier the better. Only let 'em end well, and I don't care how they begin, or whether they begin at all. In newspapers, the best part, I think, is the Parliamentary Debates. In reading them I have often got valuable hints as to the "Origin of Speeches," and they frequently afford conclusive evidence of the "Descent of Man." I thought of bringing Parliamentary manners in as a chapter in my book on "Earth-worms," but H-xl-y advised me not to, and I didn't.

My Nose.

I think I've mentioned this feature before. It troubles me. It is undoubtedly of a low type, yet it has survived! Why have I not been fitted with a fitter one? It is another instance of the fact that everything—including my fame—has come to me by sheer luck. H-xl-y says "there's a Dar-winning modesty about this last remark." Also says, "I've found the 'Philosopher's Tone.'" (What screaming fun H-xl-y always is!)

My Portraits.

Perhaps I may be allowed to say one word as to the Photographs preceding these volumes. They aren't the least little bit like me! In Volume One I appear as the unmistakable "Country Butcher." In Volume Two I am "The Gorilla Asleep," or "Beetle-brow Napping" (after a beetle-hunt, probably). Volume Three represents me as the Typical Brigand of Transpontine Melodrama.

Why, too, has the Photographer insisted on bringing out that unfortunate feature of mine so prominently?

Why? indeed! Who nose?