Note 36 — XIV THE STREAM OF THOUGHT IN LISTENING AND READING

James’s “Psychology,” vol. i., page 264. Of Charles Darwin’s habits of reading, his son says, “I have often heard him say that he got a kind of satisfaction in reading articles which (according to himself) he could not understand. I wish I could reproduce the manner in which he would laugh at himself for it.” Of his scientific reading, this son writes as follows: “Much of his scientific reading was in German, and this was a great labor to him; in reading a book after him, I was often struck at seeing, from the pencil-marks made each day where he left off, how little he could read at a time. He used to call German the ‘Verdammte,’ pronounced as if in English. He was especially indignant with Germans, because he was convinced that they could write simply if they chose, and often praised Dr. F. Hildebrand for writing German which was as clear as French.”—“Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,” vol. i., page 103.