C. D. to J. D. Hooker. [April 14th, 1855.]

You are a good man to confess that you expected the cress would be killed in a week, for this gives me a nice little triumph. The children at first were tremendously eager, and asked me often, "whether I should beat Dr. Hooker! The cress and lettuce have just vegetated well after twenty-one days' immersion. But I will write no more, which is a great virtue in me; for it is to me a very great pleasure telling you everything I do.

If you knew some of the experiments (if they may be so called) which I am trying, you would have a good right to sneer, for they are so absurd even in my opinion that I dare not tell you.

Have not some men a nice notion of experimentising? I have had a letter telling me that seeds must have great power of resisting salt water, for otherwise how could they get to islands? This is the true way to solve a problem?

Experiments on the transportal of seeds through the agency of animals, also gave him much labour. He wrote to Fox (1855):

and

"All nature is perverse and will not do as I wish it; just at present I wish I had my old barnacles to work at, and nothing new."

And to Hooker :

"Everything has been going wrong with me lately: the fish at the Zoolog. Soc. ate up lots of soaked seeds, and in imagination they had in my mind been swallowed, fish and all, by a heron, had been carried a hundred miles, been voided on the banks of some other lake and germinated splendidly, when lo and behold, the fish ejected vehemently, and with disgust equal to my own, all the seeds from their mouths."

THE UNFINISHED BOOK.

In his Autobiographical sketch (p. 41) my father wrote:"Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views pretty fully, and I began at once to do so on a scale three or four times as extensive as that which was afterwards followed in my Origin of Species; yet it was only an abstract of the materials which I had collected." The remainder of the present chapter is chiefly concerned with the preparation of this unfinished book.

The work was begun on May 14th, and steadily continued up to June 1858, when it was interrupted by the arrival of Mr.

Wallace's MS. During the two years which we are now considering, he wrote ten chapters (that is about one-half) of the projected book.

C. D. to J. D. Hooker. May 9th [1856].

*

I very much want advice and truthful consolation if you can give it. I had a good talk with Lyell about my species work, and he urges me strongly to publish something. I am fixed against any periodical or Journal, as I positively will not expose myself to an Editor or a Council allowing a publication for which they might be abused. If I publish anything it must be a very thin and little volume, giving a sketch of my views and difficulties; but it is really dreadfully unphilosophical to give a résumé, without exact references, of an unpublished work. But Lyell seemed to think I might do this, at the suggestion of friends, and on the ground, which I I might state, that I had been at work for eighteen years, and yet could not publish for several years, and especially as I could point out difficulties which seemed to me to require especial investigation. Now what think you? I should be really grateful for advice. I thought of giving up a couple of months and writing such a sketch, and trying to keep my judgment open whether or no to publish it when completed. It will be simply impossible for me to give exact references; anything important I should state on the authority of the author generally; and instead of giving all the facts on which I ground my opinion, I could give by memory only one or two. In the Preface I would state that the work could not be considered strictly scientific, but a mere sketch or outline of a future work in which full references, &c., should be given. Eheu, eheu, I believe I should sneer at any one else doing this, and my only comfort is, that I truly never dreamed of it, till Lyell suggested it, and seems deliberately to think it advisable.

I am in a peck of troubles, and do pray forgive me for troubling you.

Yours affectionately.

He made an attempt at a sketch of his views, but as he wrote to Fox in October 1856 :

"I found it such unsatisfactory work that I have desisted, *The interval of eighteen years, from 1837 when he began to collect facts, would bring the date of this letter to 1855, not 1856, nevertheless the latter seems the more probable date.

and am now drawing up my work as perfect as my materials of nineteen years' collecting suffice, but do not intend to stop to perfect any line of investigation beyond current work.” And in November he wrote to Sir Charles Lyell :

"I am working very steadily at my big book; I have found it quite impossible to publish any preliminary essay or sketch h; but am doing my work as completely as my present materials allow without waiting to perfect them. And this much acceleration I owe to you."

Again to Mr. Fox, in February, 1857

"I am got most deeply interested in my subject; though I wish I could set less value on the bauble fame, either present or posthumous, than I do, but not I think, to any extreme degree yet, if I know myself, I would work just as hard, though with less gusto, if I knew that my book would be published for ever anonymously."

C. D. to A. R. Wallace. Moor Park, May 1st, 1857.

MY DEAR SIR-I am much obliged for your letter of October 10th, from Celebes, received a few days ago; in a laborious undertaking, sympathy is a valuable and real encouragement. By your letter and even still more by your paper* in the Annals, a year or more ago, I can plainly see that we have thought much alike and to a certain extent have come to similar conclusions. In regard to the Paper in the Annals, I agree to the truth of almost every word of your paper; and I dare say that you will agree with me that it is very rare to find oneself agreeing pretty closely with any theoretical paper; for it is lamentable how each man draws his own different conclusions from the very same facts. This summer will make the 20th year (!) since I opened my first note-book, on the question how and in what way do species and varieties differ from each other. I am now preparing my work for publication, but I find the subject so very large, that though I have written many chapters, I do not suppose I shall go to press for two years. I have never heard how long you intend staying in the Malay Archipelago; I wish I might profit by the publication of your Travels there before my work appears, for no doubt you will reap a large harvest of facts. (I have acted already in accordance with your advice of keeping domestic varieties, and those appearing in a state of nature,

* "On the Law that has regulated the Introduction of New Species.” -Ann. Nat. Hist., 1855.

distinct; but I have sometimes doubted of the wisdom of this, and therefore I am glad to be backed by your opinion. I must confess, however, I rather doubt the truth of the now very prevalent doctrine of all our domestic animals having descended from several wild stocks; though I do not doubt that it is so in some cases. I think there is rather better evidence on the sterility of hybrid animals than you seem to admit: and in regard to plants the collection of carefully recorded facts by Kölreuter and Gaertner (and Herbert) is enormcus. I most entirely agree with you on the little effects of "climatal conditions," which one sees referred to ad nauseam in all books: I suppose some very little effect must be attributed to such influences, but I fully believe that they are very slight. It is really impossible to explain my views (in the compass of a letter), on the causes and means of variation in a state of nature; but I have slowly adopted a distinct and tangible idea, whether true or false others must judge; for the firmest conviction of the truth of a doctrine by its author, seems, alas, not to be the slightest guarantee of truth! ́.

In December 1857 he wrote to the same correspondent :"You ask whether I shall discussman.' I think I shall avoid the whole subject, as so surrounded with prejudices; though I fully admit that it is the highest and most interesting problem for the naturalist. My work, on which I have now been at work more or less for twenty years, will not fix or settle anything; but I hope it will aid by giving a large collection of facts, with one definite end. I get on very slowly, partly from ill-health, partly from being a very slow worker. I have got about half written; but I do not suppose I shall publish under a couple of years. I have now been three whole months on one chapter on Hybridism!

"I am astonished to see that you expect to remain out three or four years more. What a wonderful deal you will have seen, and what interesting areas-the grand Malay Archipelago and the richest parts of South America! I infinitely admire and honour your zeal and courage in the good cause of Natural Science; and you have my very sincere and cordial good wishes for success of all kinds, and may all your theories succeed, except that on Oceanic Islands, on which subject I will do battle to the death."

And to Fox in February 1858 :

"I am working very hard at my book, perhaps too hard. It will be very big, and I am become most deeply interested in the way facts fall into groups. I am like Croesus overwhelmed with my riches in facts, and I mean to make my book

as perfect as ever I can. I shall not go to press at soonest for a couple of years."

The letter which follows, written from his favourite resting place, the Water-Cure Establishment at Moor Park, comes in like a lull before the storm,-the upset of all his plans by the arrival of Mr. Wallace's manuscript, a phase in the history of his life to which the next chapter is devoted.

C. D. to Mrs. Darwin. Moor Park, April [1858].

The weather is quite delicious. Yesterday, after writing to you, I strolled a little beyond the glade for an hour and a half, and enjoyed myself-the fresh yet dark green of the grand Scotch firs, the brown of the catkins of the old birches, with their white stems, and a fringe of distant green from the larches, made an excessively pretty view. At last I fell fast asleep on the grass, and awoke with a chorus of birds singing around me, and squirrels running up the trees, and some woodpeckers laughing, and it was as pleasant and rural a scene as ever I saw, and I did not care one penny how any of the beasts or birds had been formed. I sat in the drawing-room till after eight, and then went and read the Chief Justice's summing up, and thought Bernard* guilty, and then read a bit of my novel, which is feminine, virtuous, clerical, philanthropical, and all that sort of thing, but very decidedly flat. I say feminine, for the author is ignorant about money matters, and not much of a lady-for she makes her men say, "My Lady." I like Miss Craik very much, though we have some battles, and differ on every subject. I like also the Hungarian; a thorough gentleman, formerly attaché at Paris, and then in the Austrian cavalry, and now a pardoned exile, with broken health. He does not seem to like Kossuth, but says, he is certain [he is] a sincere patriot, most clever and eloquent, but weak, with no determination of character.

* Simon Bernard was tried in April 1858 as an accessory to Orsini's attempt on the life of the Emperor of the French. The verdict was "not guilty."