Falling Out of the Tree of Life
By Peter Sís

I am fascinated by the lives of certain people throughout history: people who were the beacons, guiding lights, confirmation of our existence, of our hope. I believe outstanding people are being born right now, and there will be books, films, computer programs about them one day. Shopping malls cannot be all there is.

Shifting vision. It is not easy to depict a life. You may have the facts, the historical documents, know all about a person's desires and idiosyncrasies – but then you have the limitations of the book format. The lives of Columbus, Jan Welzl, Galileo and Charles Darwin (all of whom have been subjects of biographies I have written) could not have been more different, yet they all had to be fitted into a 42-page book with a jacket. How to make one size fit all?

For each of these books I had a vision of what the finished project should look like. But the vision had to be readjusted continually, depending on the facts I was discovering along the way. Everybody can read what is in the books, but I often regret the information I had to leave out – all the anecdotes and references there just wasn't room for.

A wider context. I always try to show the wider historical context through the use of maps – I hope they give the impression of time and place. But not enough can be said about the feelings, emotions and lucky (or unlucky) coincidences of each historical period.

One thing I could only touch upon in The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003) was the role teachers played in Darwin's life. First there was the demanding father, Dr. Darwin (depicted at right), with a clear plan for his son's life. (Dr. Darwin's brother Charles, bright and promising, had died tragically at the age of 19 while studying medicine at Edinburgh University. So Charles, named after him, was expected to follow in his uncle's steps – all the way to the medical profession.)

Charles Darwin bred pigeons in the hope of finding information to support his theory of adaptation to an environment and natural selection.

Building bridges. Charles certainly had his share of bad teachers, such as Dr. Butler at the boarding school in Shrewsbury. As was the rule of the day, Dr. Butler freely applied physical punishment. This approach to learning pushed Charles in the opposite direction: to ride horses and shoot – activities that were not acceptable to his father but later, on the Beagle voyage, very useful. Young Charles was not fond of school and began to follow his own interests, even though he was not quite sure where they would take him.

I could understand this so well. As an author depicting the life of someone I admire, I try to find emotionally connecting bridges – for better or worse. I once had a teacher in art school who was downright mean and tried to discourage me from any hope of making a career in the arts. I was trying to prove him wrong, and this is perhaps why I put so much detail into my work.

A life takes shape. Now back to Darwin and his education. He obeyed his father's wishes and followed his brother Erasmus to medical school at Edinburgh University, only to find uninspiring teachers and the realization that he did not want to be a doctor. But it was at Edinburgh that he also met the zoologist Dr. Robert Grant (pictured below right) and his microscope and discovered his own insatiable interest in nature. It was there that he took lessons in taxidermy from John Edmonstone, a freed slave. And at Edinburgh he delivered his first scientific paper, to the Plinian Society.

Dr. Darwin still insisted that he was the one who would determine his son's future. But there were only a few options left. One of them was Cambridge University, where Charles was to study to become a clergyman. Charles complied with his father's wishes and found, once again, that he was not really interested in that course of study. Instead, he found other lectures that interested him and attended those instead.

Most important, he found Professor John Stevens Henslow, who became an inspiring force in his life. To please his father, Darwin studied hard and graduated with high marks. Dr. Darwin was satisfied, and Charles now saw his future as a naturalist. Professor Henslow shaped Charles's life even after college. He was the person behind the letter inviting Charles to join the expedition of the Beagle. After initial objections, Dr. Darwin gave in, and Charles went his own way.

An ongoing education. Despite the fact that Charles Darwin was ill most of his life and busy with his science most of the time, he raised a large and lively family and inspired many bright younger scientists – Wallace, Huxley, Hooker – to educate others, just as Henslow had done for him. In a way, Darwin never stopped being a student. Always curious and alert, he exchanged hundreds of letters with the leading minds of his time. But he always found his own way. "As far as I can judge, I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men," Darwin wrote. "I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free, so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it."

In this way Charles Darwin was one of the best open-minded and modern teachers in our history. I'm pleased to have shown readers some of the story behind Charles Darwin's life story.

Peter Sís is the award-winning author and illustrator of Tibet Through the Red Box, Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei and Madlenka.