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The Loser. His lifelong application to biologic detail cost Darwin dear (suggests Author Bradford) in other fields of interest: in literature, history, politics; in esthetic enjoyment of nature; in religion. Some Catholics asked him what he was. "A sort of a Christian," he said. Habitually moral, gentle, tolerant, noble-minded, this was the truest answer, yet he regarded himself quite simply and scientifically as "differing" from faithful folk who "make themselves quite easy by intuition." He avoided cosmic thoughts, kept his writing purposely free from Pantheism, stuck to his species and specimens and "let God go" as imponderable. The Lover of mankind was his second greatest role. He was too gentle, reasonable, humble to quarrel or criticize. Attacks upon himself left him unmoved. Sociably inclined, he had to contend with his fondness for people to get his work done. His love and respect for his children was immense. A keen sportsman in youth, he could hardly bear to dissect pigeons later. The favorite game of his gentle, invalid age is referred to in a letter: "Now the tally with my wife in backgammon stands thus: she, poor creature, has won only 2,490 games while I have won, hurrah, hurrah, 2.795 games!" A pious country Woman, on hearing that he would go to hell for his beliefs, replied: "God Almighty can't afford to do without so good a man."
The Destroyer. This was the man who "slew God." This was the man who "typified the vigorous logic that wrecked the universe" for very sympathetic Author Bradford. The significance and explanation are: 1) that Darwin, saintliest of men, though he may have been the critical instrument and though he saw whither his brave thought tended, was yet no more responsible personally for the catastrophe than was many another honest thinker just before him—the German metaphysicians, Herbert Spencer, Poet Goethe, Poet Emerson; 2) that those for whom God is a necessity, as He was not for Darwin, will recreate Him.
FICTION
Rejected Giant
The Story.* On a December night in 1906, a ferocious storm swept across Glebeshire. In its cathedral town of Polchester (by the river, by the sea) in her old, old house in Canon's Yard, sat Mrs. Penethen, respected, kindly widow. She sat by her kitchen fire, her skirt drawn up to her knees, her toes resting on a woolworked cushion. She was to admit to her home that night, against her will and yet somehow with all her heart, a vast foreigner: a simple Swede, a blond HerculesApollo, whose strangely formal card contained the words: Hjalmar Johanson, Gymnastic Instructor. The storm passed in the night. But only with convulsive effort and in the space of a year did Polcastrians rid themselves of Harmer John, as they, first in affection, later in derision and finally in hate, miscalled him. During that year he encountered, with unintentionally poignant results, the public and secret lives of nearly all the town—among others:
Mrs. Penethen, who, at the end of the year, warned him to leave town, adding: "I'm fond of you as I've never been fond of any man since my poor husband died." He embraced .and kissed her. "I'm staying," he said.