The Adventures of Young Charles Darwin, Episode I, in which an impressionably young Charles is confronted with all the elements necessary to subconsciously foment a vicious strain of erotic fetishism later in life, but which, so far as anyone knows, he heroically resisted.
Quote: When I was four years and a half old I went to the sea, and stayed there some weeks. I remember many things, but with the exception of the maidservants (and these are not individualised) I recollect none of my family who were there. I remember either myself or Catherine being naughty, and being shut up in a room and trying to break the windows. I have an obscure picture of a house before my eyes, and of a neighbouring small shop, where the owner gave me one fig, but which to my great joy turned out to be two: this fig was given me that the man might kiss the maidservant. -Charles Darwin.
From More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I, available on Scrbd, as is Volume II.
Am I to understand that Mr. Darwin almost evolved into a pimp? And why is it that when I read “maidservants” that I envision a French maidservant?