Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I Part 50

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, June 21st [1859].

I am working very hard, but get on slowly, for I find that my corrections are terrifically heavy, and the work most difficult to me. I have corrected 130 pages, and the volume will be about 500. I have tried my best to make it clear and striking, but very much fear that I have failed--so many discussions are and must be very perplexing. I have done my best. If you had all my materials, I am sure you would have made a splendid book. I long to finish, for I am nearly worn out.

My dear Lyell, ever yours most truly, C. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 22nd [June, 1859].

My dear Hooker,

I did not answer your pleasant note, with a good deal of news to me, of May 30th, as I have been expecting proofs from you. But now, having nothing particular to do, I will fly a note, though I have nothing particular to say or ask. Indeed, how can a man have anything to say, who spends every day in correcting accursed proofs; and such proofs! I have fairly to blacken them, and fasten slips of paper on, so miserable have I found the style. You say that you dreamt that my book was ENTERTAINING; that dream is pretty well over with me, and I begin to fear that the public will find it intolerably dry and perplexing. But I will never give up that a better man could have made a splendid book out of the materials. I was glad to hear about Prestwich's paper. (Mr.

Prestwich wrote on the occurrence of flint instruments a.s.sociated with the remains of extinct animals in France.--(Proc. R. Soc., 1859.)) My doubt has been (and I see Wright has inserted the same in the 'Athenaeum') whether the pieces of flint are really tools; their numbers make me doubt, and when I formerly looked at Boucher de Perthe's drawings, I came to the conclusion that they were angular fragments broken by ice action.

Did crossing the Acacia do any good? I am so hard worked, that I can make no experiments. I have got only to 150 pages in first proof.

Adios, my dear Hooker, ever yours, CHARLES DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO J. MURRAY. Down, July 25th [1859].

My dear Sir,

I write to say that five sheets are returned to the printers ready to strike off, and two more sheets require only a revise; so that I presume you will soon have to decide what number of copies to print off.

I am quite incapable of forming an opinion. I think I have got the style FAIRLY good and clear, with infinite trouble. But whether the book will be successful to a degree to satisfy you, I really cannot conjecture. I heartily hope it may.

My dear Sir, yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, August 9th, 1859.

My dear Mr. Wallace,

I received your letter and memoir (This seems to refer to Mr. Wallace's paper, "On the Zoological Geography of the Malay Archipelago," 'Linn.

Soc. Journ,' 1860.) on the 7th, and will forward it to-morrow to the Linnean Society. But you will be aware that there is no meeting till the beginning of November. Your paper seems to me ADMIRABLE in matter, style, and reasoning; and I thank you for allowing me to read it. Had I read it some months ago, I should have profited by it for my forthcoming volume. But my two chapters on this subject are in type, and, though not yet corrected, I am so wearied out and weak in health, that I am fully resolved not to add one word, and merely improve the style. So you will see that my views are nearly the same with yours, and you may rely on it that not one word shall be altered owing to my having read your ideas. Are you aware that Mr. W. Earl (Probably Mr. W. Earle's paper, Geographical Soc. Journal, 1845.) published several years ago the view of distribution of animals in the Malay Archipelago, in relation to the depth of the sea between the islands? I was much struck with this, and have been in the habit of noting all facts in distribution in that archipelago, and elsewhere, in this relation. I have been led to conclude that there has been a good deal of naturalisation in the different Malay islands, and which I have thought, to a certain extent, would account for anomalies. Timor has been my greatest puzzle. What do you say to the peculiar Felis there? I wish that you had visited Timor; it has been a.s.serted that a fossil mastodon's or elephant's tooth (I forget which) has been found there, which would be a grand fact. I was aware that Celebes was very peculiar; but the relation to Africa is quite new to me, and marvellous, and almost pa.s.ses belief. It is as anomalous as the relation of PLANTS in S.W. Australia to the Cape of Good Hope. I differ WHOLLY from you on the colonisation of oceanic islands, but you will have EVERY ONE else on your side. I quite agree with respect to all islands not situated far in the ocean. I quite agree on the little occasional intermigration between lands [islands?] when once pretty well stocked with inhabitants, but think this does not apply to rising and ill-stocked islands. Are you aware that ANNUALLY birds are blown to Madeira, the Azores (and to Bermuda from America). I wish I had given a fuller abstract of my reasons for not believing in Forbes' great continental extensions; but it is too late, for I will alter nothing--I am worn out, and must have rest. Owen, I do not doubt, will bitterly oppose us...Hooker is publis.h.i.+ng a grand introduction to the Flora of Australia, and goes the whole length. I have seen proofs of about half.

With every good wish.

Believe me, yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, September 1st [1859].

...I am not surprised at your finding your Introduction very difficult.

But do not grudge the labour, and do not say you "have burnt your fingers," and are "deep in the mud"; for I feel sure that the result will be well worth the labour. Unless I am a fool, I must be a judge to some extent of the value of such general essays, and I am fully convinced that yours are the must valuable ever published.

I have corrected all but the last two chapters of my book, and hope to have done revises and all in about three weeks, and then I (or we all) shall start for some months' hydropathy; my health has been very bad, and I am becoming as weak as a child, and incapable of doing anything whatever, except my three hours daily work at proof-sheets. G.o.d knows whether I shall ever be good at anything again, perhaps a long rest and hydropathy may do something.

I have not had A. Gray's Essay, and should not feel up to criticise it, even if I had the impertinence and courage. You will believe me that I speak strictly the truth when I say that your Australian Essay is EXTREMELY interesting to me, rather too much so. I enjoy reading it over, and if you think my criticisms are worth anything to you, I beg you to send the sheets (if you can give me time for good days); but unless I can render you any little, however little a.s.sistance, I would rather read the essay when published. Pray understand that I should be TRULY vexed not to read them, if you wish it for your own sake.

I had a terribly long fit of sickness yesterday, which makes the world rather extra gloomy to-day, and I have an insanely strong wish to finish my accursed book, such corrections every page has required as I never saw before. It is so weariful, killing the whole afternoon, after 12 o'clock doing nothing whatever. But I will grumble no more. So farewell, we shall meet in the winter I trust.

Farewell, my dear Hooker, your affectionate friend, C. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, September 2nd [1859].

...I am very glad you wish to see my clean sheets: I should have offered them, but did not know whether it would bore you; I wrote by this morning's post to Murray to send them. Unfortunately I have not got to the part which will interest you, I think most, and which tells most in favour of the view, viz., Geological Succession, Geographical Distribution, and especially Morphology, Embryology and Rudimentary Organs. I will see that the remaining sheets, when printed off, are sent to you. But would you like for me to send the last and perfect revises of the sheets as I correct them? if so, send me your address in a blank envelope. I hope that you will read all, whether dull (especially latter part of Chapter II.) or not, for I am convinced there is not a sentence which has not a bearing on the whole argument. You will find Chapter IV. perplexing and unintelligible, without the aid of the enclosed queer diagram (The diagram ill.u.s.trates descent with divergence.), of which I send an old and useless proof. I have, as Murray says, corrected so heavily, as almost to have re-written it; but yet I fear it is poorly written. Parts are intricate; and I do not think that even you could make them quite clear. Do not, I beg, be in a hurry in committing yourself (like so many naturalists) to go a certain length and no further; for I am deeply convinced that it is absolutely necessary to go the whole vast length, or stick to the creation of each separate species; I argue this point briefly in the last chapter. Remember that your verdict will probably have more influence than my book in deciding whether such views as I hold will be admitted or rejected at present; in the future I cannot doubt about their admittance, and our posterity will marvel as much about the current belief as we do about fossils sh.e.l.ls having been thought to have been created as we now see them. But forgive me for running on about my hobby-horse...

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, [September] 11th [1859].

My dear Hooker,

I corrected the last proof yesterday, and I have now my revises, index, etc., which will take me near to the end of the month. So that the neck of my work, thank G.o.d, is broken.

I write now to say that I am uneasy in my conscience about hesitating to look over your proofs, but I was feeling miserably unwell and shattered when I wrote. I do not suppose I could be of hardly any use, but if I could, pray send me any proofs. I should be (and fear I was) the most ungrateful man to hesitate to do anything for you after some fifteen or more years' help from you.

As soon as ever I have fairly finished I shall be off to Ilkley, or some other Hydropathic establishment. But I shall be some time yet, as my proofs have been so utterly obscured with corrections, that I have to correct heavily on revises.

Murray proposes to publish the first week in November. Oh, good heavens, the relief to my head and body to banish the whole subject from my mind!

I hope to G.o.d, you do not think me a brute about your proof-sheets.

Farewell, yours affectionately, C. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, September 20th [1859].

My dear Lyell,

You once gave me intense pleasure, or rather delight, by the way you were interested, in a manner I never expected, in my Coral Reef notions, and now you have again given me similar pleasure by the manner you have noticed my species work. (Sir Charles was President of the Geological section at the meeting of the British a.s.sociation at Aberdeen in 1859.

The following pa.s.sage occurs in the address: "On this difficult and mysterious subject a work will very shortly appear by Mr. Charles Darwin, the result of twenty years of observations and experiments in Zoology, Botany, and Geology, by which he had been led to the conclusion that those powers of nature which give rise to races and permanent varieties in animals and plants, are the same as those which in much longer periods produce species, and in a still longer series of ages give rise to differences of generic rank. He appears to me to have succeeded by his investigations and reasonings in throwing a flood of light on many cla.s.ses of phenomena connected with the affinities, geographical distribution, and geological succession of organic beings, for which no other hypothesis has been able, or has even attempted to account.") Nothing could be more satisfactory to me, and I thank you for myself, and even more for the subject's sake, as I know well that the sentence will make many fairly consider the subject, instead of ridiculing it. Although your previously felt doubts on the immutability of species, may have more influence in converting you (if you be converted) than my book; yet as I regard your verdict as far more important in my own eyes, and I believe in the eyes of the world than of any other dozen men, I am naturally very anxious about it. Therefore let me beg you to keep your mind open till you receive (in perhaps a fortnight's time) my latter chapters, which are the most important of all on the favourable side. The last chapter, which sums up and balances in a ma.s.s all the arguments contra and pro, will, I think, be useful to you. I cannot too strongly express my conviction of the general truth of my doctrines, and G.o.d knows I have never s.h.i.+rked a difficulty. I am foolishly anxious for your verdict, not that I shall be disappointed if you are not converted; for I remember the long years it took me to come round; but I shall be most deeply delighted if you do come round, especially if I have a fair share in the conversion, I shall then feel that my career is run, and care little whether I ever am good for anything again in this life.

Thank you much for allowing me to put in the sentence about your grave doubt. (As to the immutability of species, 'Origin,' Edition i., page 310.) So much and too much about myself.

I have read with extreme interest in the Aberdeen paper about the flint tools; you have made the whole case far clearer to me; I suppose that you did not think the evidence sufficient about the Glacial period.

With cordial thanks for your splendid notice of my book.

Believe me, my dear Lyell, your affectionate disciple, CHARLES DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO W.D. FOX. Down, September 23rd [1859].

My dear Fox,

I was very glad to get your letter a few days ago. I was wis.h.i.+ng to hear about you, but have been in such an absorbed, slavish, overworked state, that I had not heart without compulsion to write to any one or do anything beyond my daily work. Though your account of yourself is better, I cannot think it at all satisfactory, and I wish you would soon go to Malvern again. My father used to believe largely in an old saying that, if a man grew thinner between fifty and sixty years of age, his chance of long life was poor, and that on the contrary it was a very good sign if he grew fatter; so that your stoutness, I look at as a very good omen. My health has been as bad as it well could be all this summer; and I have kept on my legs, only by going at short intervals to Moor Park; but I have been better lately, and, thank Heaven, I have at last as good as done my book, having only the index and two or three revises to do. It will be published in the first week in November, and a copy shall be sent you. Remember it is only an Abstract (but has cost me above thirteen months to write!!), and facts and authorities are far from given in full. I shall be curious to hear what you think of it, but I am not so silly as to expect to convert you. Lyell has read about half of the volume in clean sheets, and gives me very great kudos. He is wavering so much about the immutability of species, that I expect he will come round. Hooker has come round, and will publish his belief soon. So much for my abominable volume, which has cost me so much labour that I almost hate it. On October 3rd I start for Ilkley, but shall take three days for the journey! It is so late that we shall not take a house; but I go there alone for three or four weeks, then return home for a week and go to Moor Park for three or four weeks, and then I shall get a moderate spell of hydropathy: and I intend, if I can keep to my resolution, of being idle this winter. But I fear ennui will be as bad as a bad stomach...