Darwin’s young children sometimes painted pictures and wrote stories on the back of draft manuscripts for Darwin’s books & notes. These drawings & stories were precious to the Darwin family. So it was thanks to the fortunate meeting of the children’s play with their father’s science that these extremely rare manuscripts of the Origin of Species (4 pages), Origin Portfolios type notes (2 notes), Cirripedia (9 pages), Orchids (1 page) were preserved. Otherwise, these items, precious to scholars, would have most likely been destroyed.
—The American Museum of Natural History, The Darwin Manuscripts Project
That is so different from another story I recently read about. The father quit his successful insurance business to pursue his dream of being a full-time author. He was successful at that, too, but instead of having more time for his children, they lost him. He became a tyrant, demanding strict silence from the kids so he could concentrate on his work, and even taking their mother as his assistant.
What a difference from Charles Darwin, a devoted father to his 10 children as well as revolutionizing science. How heartwarming is that?
February 20, 2016
Such a contrast, isn’t it? I have to go with the “positive energy” in the Darwin household making you think better than negative energy and the stress of wanting/demanding absolute silence.
Agreed!
Very. And the story of the illustrations is completely new to me. Thank you.
I hadn’t known that either.