Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1

P.S. — Heaven forgive me, here is another question: How far am I right in supposing that with plants, the most important characters for main divisions are Embryological? The seed itself cannot be considered as such, I suppose, nor the albumens, etc. But I suppose the Cotyledons and their position, and the position of the plumule and the radicle, and the position and form of the whole embryo in the seed are embryological, and how far are these very important? I wish to instance plants as a case of high importance of embryological characters in classification. In the Animal Kingdom there is, of course, no doubt of this.

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, March 5th [1859].

My dear Hooker,

Many thanks about the seed...it is curious. Petrels at St. Kilda apparently being fed by seeds raised in the West Indies. It should be noted whether it is a nut ever imported into England. I am VERY glad you will read my Geographical MS.; it is now copying, and it will (I presume) take ten days or so in being finished; it shall be sent as soon as done...

I shall be very glad to see your embryological ideas on plants; by the sentence which I sent you, you will see that I only want one sentence; if facts are at all, as I suppose, and I shall see this from your note, for sending which very many thanks.

I have been so poorly, the last three days, that I sometimes doubt whether I shall ever get my little volume done, though so nearly completed...

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, March 15th [1859].

My dear Hooker,

I am PLEASED at what you say of my chapter. You have not attacked it nearly so much as I feared you would. You do not seem to have detected MANY errors. It was nearly all written from memory, and hence I was particularly fearful; it would have been better if the whole had first been carefully written out, and abstracted afterwards. I look at it as morally certain that it must include much error in some of its general views. I will just run over a few points in your note, but do not trouble yourself to reply without you have something important to say...

...I should like to know whether the case of Endemic bats in islands struck you; it has me especially; perhaps too strongly.

With hearty thanks, ever yours, C. DARWIN.

P.S. You cannot tell what a relief it has been to me your looking over this chapter, as I felt very shaky on it.

I shall to-morrow finish my last chapter (except a recapitulation) on Affinities, Homologies, Embryology, etc., and the facts seem to me to come out VERY strong for mutability of species.

I have been much interested in working out the chapter.

I shall now, thank God, begin looking over the old first chapters for press.

But my health is now so very poor, that even this will take me long.

CHARLES DARWIN TO W.D. FOX. Down [March] 24th [1859].

My dear Fox,

It was very good of you to write to me in the midst of all your troubles, though you seem to have got over some of them, in the recovery of your wife's and your own health. I had not heard lately of your mother's health, and am sorry to hear so poor an account. But as she does not suffer much, that is the great thing; for mere life I do not think is much valued by the old. What a time you must have had of it, when you had to go backwards and forwards.

We are all pretty well, and our eldest daughter is improving. I can see daylight through my work, and am now finally correcting my chapters for the press; and I hope in a month or six weeks to have proof-sheets. I am weary of my work. It is a very odd thing that I have no sensation that I overwork my brain; but facts compel me to conclude that my brain was never formed for much thinking. We are resolved to go for two or three months, when I have finished, to Ilkley, or some such place, to see if I can anyhow give my health a good start, for it certainly has been wretched of late, and has incapacitated me for everything. You do me injustice when you think that I work for fame; I value it to a certain extent; but, if I know myself, I work from a sort of instinct to try to make out truth. How glad I should be if you could sometime come to Down; especially when I get a little better, as I still hope to be. We have set up a billiard table, and I find it does me a deal of good, and drives the horrid species out of my head. Farewell, my dear old friend.

Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, March 28th [1859].

My dear Lyell,

If I keep decently well, I hope to be able to go to press with my volume early in May. This being so, I want much to beg a little advice from you. From an expression in Lady Lyell's note, I fancy that you have spoken to Murray. Is it so? And is he willing to publish my Abstract? If you will tell me whether anything, and what has passed, I will then write to him. Does he know at all of the subject of the book? Secondly, can you advise me, whether I had better state what terms of publication I should prefer, or first ask him to propose terms? And what do you think would be fair terms for an edition? Share profits, or what?

Lastly, will you be so very kind as to look at the enclosed title and give me your opinion and any criticisms; you must remember that, if I have health and it appears worth doing, I have a much larger and full book on the same subject nearly ready.

My Abstract will be about five hundred pages of the size of your first edition of the 'Elements of Geology.'

Pray forgive me troubling you with the above queries; and you shall have no more trouble on the subject. I hope the world goes well with you, and that you are getting on with your various works.

I am working very hard for me, and long to finish and be free and try to recover some health.

My dear Lyell, ever yours, C. DARWIN.

Very sincere thanks to you for standing my proxy for the Wollaston Medal.

P.S. Would you advise me to tell Murray that my book is not more UN-orthodox than the subject makes inevitable. That I do not discuss the origin of man. That I do not bring in any discussion about Genesis, etc., etc., and only give facts, and such conclusions from them as seem to me fair.

Or had I better say NOTHING to Murray, and assume that he cannot object to this much unorthodoxy, which in fact is not more than any Geological Treatise which runs slap counter to Genesis.

INCLOSURE. AN ABSTRACT OF AN ESSAY ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES AND VARIETIES THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION BY CHARLES DARWIN, M.A.

Fellow of the Royal Geological and Linnean Societies...

LONDON:

etc., etc., etc., etc.

1859.

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, March 30th [1859].

My dear Lyell,

You have been uncommonly kind in all you have done. You not only have saved me much trouble and some anxiety, but have done all incomparably better than I could have done it. I am much pleased at all you say about Murray. I will write either to-day or to-morrow to him, and will send shortly a large bundle of MS., but unfortunately I cannot for a week, as the first three chapters are in the copyists' hands.

I am sorry about Murray objecting to the term Abstract, as I look at it as the only possible apology for NOT giving references and facts in full, but I will defer to him and you. I am also sorry about the term "natural selection." I hope to retain it with explanation somewhat as thus —

"Through natural selection, or the preservation of favoured Races."

Why I like the term is that it is constantly used in all works on breeding, and I am surprised that it is not familiar to Murray; but I have so long studied such works that I have ceased to be a competent judge.

I again most truly and cordially thank you for your really valuable assistance.

Yours most truly, C. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, April 2nd [1859].

...I wrote to him [Mr. Murray] and gave him the headings of the chapters, and told him he could not have the MS. for ten days or so; and this morning I received a letter, offering me handsome terms, and agreeing to publish without seeing the MS.! So he is eager enough; I think I should have been cautious, anyhow, but, owing to your letter, I told him most EXPLICITLY that I accept his offer solely on condition that, after he has seen part or all the MS., he has full power of retracting. You will think me presumptuous, but I think my book will be popular to a certain extent (enough to ensure [against] heavy loss) amongst scientific and semi-scientific men; why I think so is, because I have found in conversation so great and surprising an interest amongst such men, and some o-scientific [non-scientific] men on this subject, and all my chapters are not NEARLY so dry and dull as that which you have read on geographical distribution. Anyhow, Murray ought to be the best judge, and if he chooses to publish it, I think I may wash my hands of all responsibility. I am sure my friends, i.e., Lyell and you, have been EXTRAORDINARILY kind in troubling yourselves on the matter.

I shall be delighted to see you the day before Good Friday; there would be one advantage for you in any other day — as I believe both my boys come home on that day — and it would be almost impossible that I could send the carriage for you. There will, I believe, be some relations in the house — but I hope you will not care for that, as we shall easily get as much talking as my IMBECILE STATE allows. I shall deeply enjoy seeing you.

...I am tired, so no more.

My dear Hooker, your affectionate, C. DARWIN.

P.S. — Please to send, well TIED UP with strong string, my Geographical MS., towards the latter half of next week — i.e., 7th or 8th — that I may send it with more to Murray; and God help him if he tries to read it.

...I cannot help a little doubting whether Lyell would take much pains to induce Murray to publish my book; this was not done at my request, and it rather grates against my pride.

I know that Lyell has been INFINITELY kind about my affair, but your dashed (i.e., underlined) "INDUCE" gives the idea that Lyell had unfairly urged Murray.

CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. April 4th [1859].

...You ask to see my sheets as printed off; I assure you that it will be the HIGHEST satisfaction to me to do so: I look at the request as a high compliment. I shall not, you may depend, forget a request which I look at as a favour. But (and it is a heavy "but" to me) it will be long before I go to press; I can truly say I am NEVER idle; indeed, I work too hard for my much weakened health; yet I can do only three hours of work daily, and I cannot at all see when I shall have finished: I have done eleven long chapters, but I have got some other very difficult ones: as palaeontology, classifications, and embryology, etc., and I have to correct and add largely to all those done. I find, alas! each chapter takes me on an average three months, so slow I am. There is no end to the necessary digressions. I have just finished a chapter on Instinct, and here I found grappling with such a subject as bees' cells, and comparing all my notes made during twenty years, took up a despairing length of time.

But I am running on about myself in a most egotistical style. Yet I must just say how useful I have again and again found your letters, which I have lately been looking over and quoting! but you need not fear that I shall quote anything you would dislike, for I try to be very cautious on this head. I most heartily hope you may succeed in getting your "incubus" of old work off your hands, and be in some degree a free man...

Again let me say that I do indeed feel grateful to you...

CHARLES DARWIN TO J. MURRAY. Down, April 5th [1859].

My dear Sir,

I send by this post, the Title (with some remarks on a separate page), and the first three chapters. If you have patience to read all Chapter I., I honestly think you will have a fair notion of the interest of the whole book. It may be conceit, but I believe the subject will interest the public, and I am sure that the views are original. If you think otherwise, I must repeat my request that you will freely reject my work; and though I shall be a little disappointed, I shall be in no way injured.

If you choose to read Chapters II. and III., you will have a dull and rather abstruse chapter, and a plain and interesting one, in my opinion.

As soon as you have done with the MS., please to send it by CAREFUL MESSENGER, AND PLAINLY DIRECTED, to Miss G. Tollett, 14, Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square.

This lady, being an excellent judge of style, is going to look out for errors for me.

You must take your own time, but the sooner you finish, the sooner she will, and the sooner I shall get to press, which I so earnestly wish.

I presume you will wish to see Chapter IV., the key-stone of my arch, and Chapters X. and XI., but please to inform me on this head.

My dear Sir, yours sincerely, C. DARWIN.

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

...I write one line to say that I heard from Murray yesterday, and he says he has read the first three chapters of one MS.(and this includes a very dull one), and he abides by his offer. Hence he does not want more MS., and you can send my Geographical chapter when it pleases you...

[Part of the MS. seems to have been lost on its way back to my father; he wrote (April 14) to Sir J.D. Hooker:]

"I have the old MS., otherwise, the loss would have killed me! The worst is now that it will cause delay in getting to press, and FAR WORST of all, lose all advantage of your having looked over my chapter, except the third part returned. I am very sorry Mrs. Hooker took the trouble of copying the two pages."

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. [April or May, 1859].

...Please do not say to any one that I thought my book on Species would be fairly popular, and have a fairly remunerative sale (which was the height of my ambition), for if it prove a dead failure, it would make me the more ridiculous.

I enclose a criticism, a taste of the future —

REV. S. HAUGHTON'S ADDRESS TO THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, DUBLIN. (February 9, 1859.)

"This speculation of Messrs. Darwin and Wallace would not be worthy of notice were it not for the weight of authority of the names (i.e. Lyell's and yours), under whose auspices it has been brought forward. If it means what it says, it is a truism; if it means anything more, it is contrary to fact."

Q.E.D.

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

My dear Hooker,

Thank you for telling me about obscurity of style. But on my life no nigger with lash over him could have worked harder at clearness than I have done. But the very difficulty to me, of itself leads to the probability that I fail. Yet one lady who has read all my MS. has found only two or three obscure sentences, but Mrs. Hooker having so found it, makes me tremble. I will do my best in proofs. You are a good man to take the trouble to write about it.

With respect to our mutual muddle ("When I go over the chapter I will see what I can do, but I hardly know how I am obscure, and I think we are somehow in a mutual muddle with respect to each other, from starting from some fundamentally different notions." — Letter of May 6, 1859.), I never for a moment thought we could not make our ideas clear to each other by talk, or if either of us had time to write in extenso.

I imagine from some expressions (but if you ask me what, I could not answer) that you look at variability as some necessary contingency with organisms, and further that there is some necessary tendency in the variability to go on diverging in character or degree. IF YOU DO, I do not agree. "Reversion" again (a form of inheritance), I look at as in no way directly connected with Variation, though of course inheritance is of fundamental importance to us, for if a variation be not inherited, it is of no significance to us. It was on such points as these I FANCIED that we perhaps started differently.

I fear that my book will not deserve at all the pleasant things you say about it; and Good Lord, how I do long to have done with it!

Since the above was written, I have received and have been MUCH INTERESTED by A. Gray. I am delighted at his note about my and Wallace's paper. He will go round, for it is futile to give up very many species, and stop at an arbitrary line at others. It is what my grandfather called Unitarianism, "a feather bed to catch a falling Christian."...

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, May 18th [1859].

My dear Hooker,

My health has quite failed. I am off to-morrow for a week of Hydropathy. I am very very sorry to say that I cannot look over any proofs (Of Sir J. Hooker's Introduction to the 'Flora of Australia.') in the week, as my object is to drive the subject out of my head. I shall return to-morrow week. If it be worth while, which probably it is not, you could keep back any proofs till my return home.

In haste, ever yours, C. DARWIN.

[Ten days later he wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker:

"...I write one word to say that I shall return on Saturday, and if you have any proof-sheets to send, I shall be glad to do my best in any criticisms. I had... great prostration of mind and body, but entire rest, and the douche, and 'Adam Bede,' have together done me a world of good."]

CHARLES DARWIN TO J. MURRAY. Down, June 14th [1859].

My dear Sir,

The diagram will do very well, and I will send it shortly to Mr. West to have a few trifling corrections made.

I get on very slowly with proofs. I remember writing to you that I thought there would not be much correction. I honestly wrote what I thought, but was most grievously mistaken. I find the style incredibly bad, and most difficult to make clear and smooth. I am extremely sorry to say, on account of expense, and loss of time for me, that the corrections are very heavy, as heavy as possible. But from casual glances, I still hope that later chapters are not so badly written. How I could have written so badly is quite inconceivable, but I suppose it was owing to my whole attention being fixed on the general line of argument, and not on details. All I can say is, that I am very sorry.

Yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN.

P.S. I have been looking at the corrections, and considering them. It seems to me that I shall put you to a quite unfair expense. If you please I should like to enter into some such arrangement as the following: when work completed, you to allow in the account a fairly moderately heavy charge for corrections, and all excess over that to be deducted from my profits, or paid by me individually.

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 associated 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 asserted 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 passes 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 publishing 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. God 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 assistance, 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 illustrates 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 shells 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 God, 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 God, you do not think me a brute about your proof-sheets.