Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 332 pages of information about Alfred Russel Wallace.

Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 332 pages of information about Alfred Russel Wallace.
day, and we became so thirsty that when we reached a stream, to our great joy and delight he took out of his pocket, not the old leather drinking-cup he usually carried, but a long piece of black indiarubber tubing.  We can see him now, quite as pleased as we were with this brilliant idea, letting it down into the stream and then offering us a drink!  No water ever tasted so nice!  Our mother used to be a little anxious as to the quality of the water, but he always put aside such objections by saying running water was quite safe, and somehow we never came to any harm through it.  The same happy luck attended our cuts and scratches; he always put “stamp-paper” on them, calling it plaster, and we knew of no other till years later.  He used the same thing for his own cuts, etc., to the end of his life, with no ill effects.

In 1881 we moved again, this time to Godalming, where he had built a small house which be called “Nutwood Cottage.”  After Croydon this was a very welcome change and we all enjoyed the lovely country round.  The garden as usual was the chief hobby, and Mr. J.W.  Sharpe, our old friend and neighbour in those days, has written his reminiscences of this time which give a very good picture of our father.  They are as follows: 

* * * * *

About thirty-five years ago Dr. Wallace built a house upon a plot of ground adjoining that upon which our house stood.  I was at that time an assistant master at Charterhouse School; and Dr. Wallace became acquainted with a few of the masters besides myself.  With two or three of them he had regular weekly games of chess; for he was then and for long afterwards very fond of that game; and, I understand, possessed considerable skill at it.  A considerable portion of his spare time was spent in his garden, in the management of which Mrs. Wallace, who had much knowledge and experience of gardening, very cordially assisted him.  Here his characteristic energy and restlessness were conspicuously displayed.  He was always designing some new feature, some alteration in a flower-bed, some special environment for a new plant; and always he was confident that the new schemes would be found to have all the perfections which the old ones lacked.  From all parts of the world botanists and collectors sent him, from time to time, rare or newly discovered plants, bulbs, roots or seeds, which he, with the help of Mrs. Wallace’s practical skill, would try to acclimatise, and to persuade to grow somewhere or other in his garden or conservatory.  Nothing disturbed his cheerful confidence in the future, and nothing made him happier than some plan for reforming the house, the garden, the kitchen-boiler, or the universe.  And, truth to say, he displayed great ingenuity in all these enterprises of reformation.  Although they were never in effect what they were expected to be by their ingenious author, they were often sufficiently successful; but, successful or not,

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Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 2 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.