Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II Part 54

Again to the same friend, November 1, 1861:--

"If you really can spare another Catasetum, when nearly ready, I shall be most grateful; had I not better send for it? The case is truly marvellous; the (so-called) sensation, or stimulus from a light touch is certainly transmitted through the antennae for more than one inch INSTANTANEOUSLY... A cursed insect or something let my last flower off last night."

Professor de Candolle has remarked ('Darwin considere, etc.,' 'Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles,' 3eme periode. Tome vii. 481, 1882 (May).) of my father, "Ce n'est pas lui qui aurait demande de construire des palais pour y loger des laboratoires." This was singularly true of his orchid work, or rather it would be nearer the truth to say that he had no laboratory, for it was only after the publication of the 'Fertilisation of Orchids,' that he built himself a greenhouse. He wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker (December 24th, 1862):--

"And now I am going to tell you a MOST important piece of news!! I have almost resolved to build a small hot-house; my neighbour's really firs-rate gardener has suggested it, and offered to make me plans, and see that it is well done, and he is really a clever fellow, who wins lots of prizes, and is very observant. He believes that we should succeed with a little patience; it will be a grand amus.e.m.e.nt for me to experiment with plants."

Again he wrote (February 15th, 1863):--

"I write now because the new hot-house is ready, and I long to stock it, just like a schoolboy. Could you tell me pretty soon what plants you can give me; and then I shall know what to order? And do advise me how I had better get such plants as you can SPARE. Would it do to send my tax-cart early in the morning, on a day that was not frosty, lining the cart with mats, and arriving here before night? I have no idea whether this degree of exposure (and of course the cart would be cold) could injure stov-plants; they would be about five hours (with bait) on the journey home."

A week later he wrote:--

"you cannot imagine what pleasure your plants give me (far more than your dead Wedgwood ware can give you); and I go and gloat over them, but we privately confessed to each other, that if they were not our own, perhaps we should not see such transcendent beauty in each leaf."

And in March, when he was extremely unwell he wrote:--

"A few words about the Stove-plants; they do so amuse me. I have crawled to see them two or three times. Will you correct and answer, and return enclosed. I have hunted in all my books and cannot find these names (His difficulty with regard to the names of plants is ill.u.s.trated, with regard to a Lupine on which he was at work, in an extract from a letter (July 21, 1866) to Sir J.D. Hooker: "I sent to the nursery garden, whence I bought the seed, and could only hear that it was 'the common blue Lupine,' the man saying 'he was no scholard, and did not know Latin, and that parties who make experiments ought to find out the names.'"), and I like much to know the family."

The book was published May 15th, 1862. Of its reception he writes to Murray, June 13th and 18th:--

"The Botanists praise my Orchid-book to the skies. Some one sent me (perhaps you) the 'Parthenon,' with a good review. The "Athenaeum" (May 24, 1862.) treats me with very kind pity and contempt; but the reviewer knew nothing of his subject."

"There is a superb, but I fear exaggerated, review in the 'London Review,' (June 14, 1862.) But I have not been a fool, as I thought I was, to publish (Doubts on this point still, however, occurred to him about this time. He wrote to Prof. Oliver (June 8): "I am glad that you have read my Orchis-book and seem to approve of it; for I never published anything which I so much doubted whether it was worth publis.h.i.+ng, and indeed I still doubt. The subject interested me beyond what, I suppose, it is worth."); for Asa Gray, about the most competent judge in the world, thinks almost as highly of the book as does the 'London Review.' The "Athenaeum" will hinder the sale greatly."

The Rev. M.J. Berkeley was the author of the notice in the 'London Review,' as my father learned from Sir J.D. Hooker, who added, 'I thought it very well done indeed. I have read a good deal of the Orchid-book, and echo all he says."

To this my father replied (June 30th, 1862):--

"My dear Old Friend,

You speak of my warming the c.o.c.kles of your heart, but you will never know how often you have warmed mine. It is not your approbation of my scientific work (though I care for that more than for any one's): it is something deeper. To this day I remember keenly a letter you wrote to me from Oxford, when I was at the Water-cure, and how it cheered me when I was utterly weary of life. Well, my Orchis-book is a success (but I do not know whether it sells.)"

In another letter to the same friend, he wrote:--

"You have pleased me much by what you say in regard to Bentham and Oliver approving of my book; for I had got a sort of nervousness, and doubted whether I had not made an egregious fool of myself, and concocted pleasant little stinging remarks for reviews, such as 'Mr.

Darwin's head seems to have been turned by a certain degree of success, and he thinks that the most trifling observations are worth publication.'"

Mr. Bentham's approval was given in his Presidential Address to the Linnean Society, May 24, 1862, and was all the more valuable because it came from one who was by no means supposed to be favourable to evolutionary doctrines.]

CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, June 10 [1862].

My dear Gray,

Your generous sympathy makes you overestimate what you have read of my Orchid-book. But your letter of May 18th and 26th has given me an almost foolish amount of satisfaction. The subject interested me, I knew, beyond its real value; but I had lately got to think that I had made myself a complete fool by publis.h.i.+ng in a semi-popular form. Now I shall confidently defy the world. I have heard that Bentham and Oliver approve of it; but I have heard the opinion of no one else whose opinion is worth a farthing... No doubt my volume contains much error: how curiously difficult it is to be accurate, though I try my utmost. Your notes have interested me beyond measure. I can now afford to d-- my critics with ineffable complacency of mind. Cordial thanks for this benefit. It is surprising to me that you should have strength of mind to care for science, amidst the awful events daily occurring in your country. I daily look at the "Times" with almost as much interest as an American could do. When will peace come? it is dreadful to think of the desolation of large parts of your magnificent country; and all the speechless misery suffered by many. I hope and think it not unlikely that we English are wrong in concluding that it will take a long time for prosperity to return to you. It is an awful subject to reflect on...

[Dr. Asa Gray reviewed the book in 'Silliman's Journal' ('Silliman's Journal,' volume xxiv. page 138. Here is given an account of the fertilisation of Platanthera Hookeri. P. hyperborea is discussed in Dr. Gray's 'Enumeration' in the same volume, page 259; also, with other species, in a second notice of the Orchid-book at page 420.), where he speaks, in strong terms, of the fascination which it must have for even slightly instructed readers. He made, too, some original observations on an American orchid, and these first-fruits of the subject, sent in MS.

or proof sheet to my father, were welcomed by him in a letter (July 23rd):--

"Last night, after writing the above, I read the great bundle of notes.

Little did I think what I had to read. What admirable observations! You have distanced me on my own hobby-horse! I have not had for weeks such a glow of pleasure as your observations gave me."

The next letter refers to the publication of the review:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, July 28 [1862].

My dear Gray,

I hardly know what to thank for first. Your stamps gave infinite satisfaction. I took him (One of his boys who was ill.) first one lot, and then an hour afterwards another lot. He actually raised himself on one elbow to look at them. It was the first animation he showed. He said only: "You must thank Professor Gray awfully." In the evening after a long silence, there came out the oracular sentence: "He is awfully kind." And indeed you are, overworked as you are, to take so much trouble for our poor dear little man.--And now I must begin the "awfullys" on my own account: what a capital notice you have published on the orchids! It could not have been better; but I fear that you overrate it. I am very sure that I had not the least idea that you or any one would approve of it so much. I return your last note for the chance of your publis.h.i.+ng any notice on the subject; but after all perhaps you may not think it worth while; yet in my judgment SEVERAL of your facts, especially Platanthera hyperborea, are MUCH too good to be merged in a review. But I have always noticed that you are prodigal in originality in your reviews...

[Sir Joseph Hooker reviewed the book in the "Gardeners' Chronicle", writing in a successful imitation of the style of Lindley, the Editor.

My father wrote to Sir Joseph (November 12, 1862):--

"So you did write the review in the "Gardeners' Chronicle". Once or twice I doubted whether it was Lindley; but when I came to a little slap at R. Brown, I doubted no longer. You arch-rogue! I do not wonder you have deceived others also. Perhaps I am a conceited dog; but if so, you have much to answer for; I never received so much praise, and coming from you I value it much more than from any other."

With regard to botanical opinion generally, he wrote to Dr. Gray, "I am fairly astonished at the success of my book with botanists." Among naturalists who were not botanists, Lyell was pre-eminent in his appreciation of the book. I have no means of knowing when he read it, but in later life, as I learn from Professor Judd, he was enthusiastic in praise of the 'Fertilisation of Orchids,' which he considered "next to the 'Origin,' as the most valuable of all Darwin's works." Among the general public the author did not at first hear of many disciples, thus he wrote to his cousin Fox in September 1862: "Hardly any one not a botanist, except yourself, as far as I know, has cared for it."

A favourable notice appeared in the "Sat.u.r.day Review", October 18th, 1862; the reviewer points out that the book would escape the angry polemics aroused by the 'Origin.' (Dr. Gray pointed out that if the Orchid-book (with a few trifling omissions) had appeared before the 'Origin,' the author would have been canonised rather than anathematised by the natural theologians.) This is ill.u.s.trated by a review in the "Literary Churchman", in which only one fault found, namely, that Mr.

Darwin's expression of admiration at the contrivances in orchids is too indirect a way of saying, "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works!"

A somewhat similar criticism occurs in the 'Edinburgh Review' (October 1862). The writer points out that Mr. Darwin constantly uses phrases, such as "beautiful contrivance," "the labellum is... IN ORDER TO attract," "the nectar is PURPOSELY lodged." The Reviewer concludes his discussion thus: "We know, too that these purposes and ideas are not our own, but the ideas and purposes of Another."

The 'Edinburgh' reviewer's treatment of this subject was criticised in the "Sat.u.r.day Review", November 15th, 1862: With reference to this article my father wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker (December 29th, 1862):--

"Here is an odd chance; my nephew Henry Parker, an Oxford Cla.s.sic, and Fellow of Oriel, came here this evening; and I asked him whether he knew who had written the little article in the "Sat.u.r.day", smas.h.i.+ng the [Edinburgh reviewer], which we liked; and after a little hesitation he owned he had. I never knew that he wrote in the "Sat.u.r.day"; and was it not an odd chance?"

The 'Edinburgh' article was written by the Duke of Argyll, and has since been made use of in his 'Reign of Law,' 1867. Mr. Wallace replied ('Quarterly Journal of Science,' October 1867. Republished in 'Natural Selection,' 1871.) to the Duke's criticisms, making some specially good remarks on those which refer to orchids. He shows how, by a "beautiful self-acting adjustment," the nectary of the orchid Angraec.u.m (from 10 to 14 inches in length), and the proboscis of a moth sufficiently long to reach the nectar, might be developed by natural selection. He goes on to point out that on any other theory we must suppose that the flower was created with an enormously long nectary, and that then by a special act, an insect was created fitted to visit the flower, which would otherwise remain sterile. With regard to this point my father wrote (October 12 or 13, 1867):--

"I forgot to remark how capitally you turn the tables on the Duke, when you make him create the Angraec.u.m and Moth by special creation."

If we examine the literature relating to the fertilisation of flowers, we do not find that this new branch of study showed any great activity immediately after the publication of the Orchid-book. There are a few papers by Asa Gray, in 1862 and 1863, by Hildebrand in 1864, and by Moggridge in 1865, but the great ma.s.s of work by Axell, Delpino, Hildebrand, and the Mullers, did not begin to appear until about 1867.

The period during which the new views were being a.s.similated, and before they became thoroughly fruitful, was, however, surprisingly short. The later activity in this department may be roughly gauged by the fact that the valuable 'Bibliography,' given by Prof. D'Arcy Thompson in his translation of Muller's 'Befruchtung' (1883), contains references to 814 papers.

Besides the book on Orchids, my father wrote two or three papers on the subject, which will be found mentioned in the Appendix. The earliest of these, on the three s.e.xual forms of Catasetum, was published in 1862; it is an antic.i.p.ation of part of the Orchid-book, and was merely published in the Linnean Society's Journal, in acknowledgment of the use made of a specimen in the Society's possession. The possibility of apparently distinct species being merely s.e.xual forms of a single species, suggested a characteristic experiment, which is alluded to in the following letter to one of his earliest disciples in the study of the fertilisation of flowers:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO J. TRAHERNE MOGGRIDGE. (The late Mr. Moggridge, author of 'Harvesting Ants and Trap-door Spiders,' 'Flora of Mentone,' etc.) Down, October 13 [1865].

My dear Sir,

I am especially obliged to you for your beautiful plates and letter-press; for no single point in natural history interests and perplexes me so much as the self-fertilisation (He once remarked to Dr.

Norman Moore that one of the things that made him wish to live a few thousand years, was his desire to see the extinction of the Bee-orchis,--an end to which he believed its self-fertilising habit was leading.) of the Bee-orchis. You have already thrown some light on the subject, and your present observations promise to throw more.

I formed two conjectures: first, that some insect during certain seasons might cross the plants, but I have almost given up this; nevertheless, pray have a look at the flowers next season. Secondly, I conjectured that the Spider and Bee-orchis might be a crossing and self-fertile form of the same species. Accordingly I wrote some years ago to an acquaintance, asking him to mark some Spider-orchids, and observe whether they retained the same character; but he evidently thought the request as foolish as if I had asked him to mark one of his cows with a ribbon, to see if it would turn next spring into a horse. Now will you be so kind as to tie a string round the stem of a half-a-dozen Spider-orchids, and when you leave Mentone dig them up, and I would try and cultivate them and see if they kept constant; but I should require to know in what sort of soil and situations they grow. It would be indispensable to mark the plant so that there could be no mistake about the individual. It is also just possible that the same plant would throw up, at different seasons different flower-scapes, and the marked plants would serve as evidence.