The Guardian – Rosalind White
“Darwin’s strategy was one of crafted self-possession. He prioritised domestic comfort, time with his family and rambles in the country, rather than intellectual endurance. As a method for writing, it fostered a deep emotional connection with his research – and this intimacy resonates in the lucid flow and appreciative tone of his arguments: “It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds,” he writes. “With birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.” Darwin resisted an automatic, or breakneck approach. The pleasure he took in both his writing and his research is tied up with his ability to take a moment, breathe and witness the world in a wider dimension.”(more)