Excerpt from Charles Darwin's autobiography,'I have been told that I was much slower in learning than my younger sister Catherine and I believe that I was in many ways a naughty boy. By the time I went to this day-school my taste for natural history,and more especially for collecting,was well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants,and collected all sorts of things,shells,seals,franks,coins,and minerals. The passion for collecting which leads a man to be a systematic naturalist,a virtuoso,or a miser,was very strong in me,and was clearly innate,as none of my sisters or brother ever had this taste. Portrait down by Ellen Sharples (1769 -1849) an English painter who specialized in portraits in pastel and in watercolor miniatures |