be a quiet house-friend, honestly attached; though his visits latterly have
been rarer and rarer, health so poor, I so occupied, etc., etc. He had
something of original and sarcastically ingenious in him, one of the
sincerest, naturally truest, and most modest of men; elder brother of
Charles Darwin (the famed Darwin on Species of these days) to whom I rather
prefer him for intellect, had not his health quite doomed him to silence
and patient idleness...My dear one had a great favour for this honest
Darwin always; many a road, to shops and the like, he drove her in his cab
(Darwingium Cabbum comparable to Georgium Sidus) in those early days when
even the charge of omnibuses was a consideration, and his sparse
utterances, sardonic often, were a great amusement to her. 'A perfect
gentleman,' she at once discerned him to be, and of sound worth and
kindliness in the most unaffected form." (Carlyle's 'Reminiscences,' vol.
ii. page 208.)

Charles Darwin did not appreciate this sketch of his brother; he thought
Carlyle had missed the essence of his most lovable nature.

I am tempted by the wish of illustrating further the character of one so
sincerely beloved by all Charles Darwin's children, to reproduce a letter
to the "Spectator" (September 3, 1881) by his cousin Miss Julia Wedgwood.

"A portrait from Mr. Carlyle's portfolio not regretted by any who loved the
original, surely confers sufficient distinction to warrant a few words of
notice, when the character it depicts is withdrawn from mortal gaze.
Erasmus, the only brother of Charles Darwin, and the faithful and
affectionate old friend of both the Carlyles, has left a circle of mourners
who need no tribute from illustrious pen to embalm the memory so dear to
their hearts; but a wider circle must have felt some interest excited by
that tribute, and may receive with a certain attention the record of a