The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I

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Believe me, dear Fitz-Roy,
Your ever truly obliged,
CHARLES DARWIN.

[A quotation from another letter (1846) to Fitz-Roy may be worth giving, as
showing my father's affectionate remembrance of his old Captain.

"Farewell, dear Fitz-Roy, I often think of your many acts of kindness to
me, and not seldomest on the time, no doubt quite forgotten by you, when,
before making Madeira, you came and arranged my hammock with your own
hands, and which, as I afterwards heard, brought tears into my father's
eyes."]

CHARLES DARWIN TO W.D. FOX.
[Down, September 5, 1843.]
Monday morning.

My dear Fox,

When I sent off the glacier paper, I was just going out and so had no time
to write. I hope your friend will enjoy (and I wish you were going there
with him) his tour as much as I did. It was a kind of geological novel.
But your friend must have patience, for he will not get a good GLACIAL EYE
for a few days. Murchison and Count Keyserling RUSHED through North Wales
the same autumn and could see nothing except the effects of rain trickling
over the rocks! I cross-examined Murchison a little, and evidently saw he
had looked carefully at nothing. I feel CERTAIN about the glacier-effects
in North Wales. Get up your steam, if this weather lasts, and have a
ramble in Wales; its glorious scenery must do every one's heart and body
good. I wish I had energy to come to Delamere and go with you; but as you
observe, you might as well ask St. Paul's. Whenever I give myself a trip,
it shall be, I think, to Scotland, to hunt for more parallel roads. My
marine theory for these roads was for a time knocked on the head by Agassiz
ice-work, but it is now reviving again...

Farewell,--we are getting nearly finished--almost all the workmen gone, and
the gravel laying down on the walks. Ave Maria! how the money does go.
There are twice as many temptations to extravagance in the country compared
with London. Adios.

Yours,
C. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down [1844?].

...I have also read the 'Vestiges,' ('The Vestiges of the Natural History
of Creation' was published anonymously in 1844, and is confidently believed
to have been written by the late Robert Chambers. My father's copy gives
signs of having been carefully read, a long list of marked passages being
pinned in at the end. One useful lesson he seems to have learned from it.
He writes: "The idea of a fish passing into a reptile, monstrous. I will
not specify any genealogies--much too little known at present." He refers
again to the book in a letter to Fox, February, 1845: "Have you read that
strange, unphilosophical but capitally-written book, the 'Vestiges': it
has made more talk than any work of late, and has been by some attributed
to me--at which I ought to be much flattered and unflattered."), but have
been somewhat less amused at it than you appear to have been: the writing
and arrangement are certainly admirable, but his geology strikes me as bad,
and his zoology far worse. I should be very much obliged, if at any future
or leisure time you could tell me on what you ground your doubtful belief
in imagination of a mother affecting her offspring. (This refers to the
case of a relative of Sir J. Hooker's, who insisted that a mole, which
appeared on one of her children, was the effect of fright upon herself on
having, before the birth of the child, blotted with sepia a copy of
Turner's 'Liber Studiorum' that had been lent to her with special
injunctions to be careful.) I have attended to the several statements
scattered about, but do not believe in more than accidental coincidences.
W. Hunter told my father, then in a lying-in hospital, that in many
thousand cases, he had asked the mother, BEFORE HER CONFINEMENT, whether
anything had affected her imagination, and recorded the answers; and
absolutely not one case came right, though, when the child was anything
remarkable, they afterwards made the cap to fit. Reproduction seems
governed by such similar laws in the whole animal kingdom, that I am most
loth [to believe]...

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.M. HERBERT.
Down [1844 or 1845].

My dear Herbert,

I was very glad to see your handwriting and hear a bit of news about you.
Though you cannot come here this autumn, I do hope you and Mrs. Herbert
will come in the winter, and we will have lots of talk of old times, and
lots of Beethoven.

I have little or rather nothing to say about myself; we live like clock-
work, and in what most people would consider the dullest possible manner.
I have of late been slaving extra hard, to the great discomfiture of
wretched digestive organs, at South America, and thank all the fates, I
have done three-fourths of it. Writing plain English grows with me more
and more difficult, and never attainable. As for your pretending that you
will read anything so dull as my pure geological descriptions, lay not such
a flattering unction on my soul (On the same subject he wrote to Fitz-Roy:
"I have sent my 'South American Geology' to Dover Street, and you will get
it, no doubt, in the course of time. You do not know what you threaten
when you propose to read it--it is purely geological. I said to my
brother, 'You will of course read it,' and his answer was, 'Upon my life, I
would sooner even buy it.'") for it is incredible. I have long discovered
that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in
writing a book is a proof of earnestness, and that you do not form your
opinions without undergoing labour of some kind. Geology is at present
very oral, and what I here say is to a great extent quite true. But I am
giving you a discussion as long as a chapter in the odious book itself.

I have lately been to Shrewsbury, and found my father surprisingly well and
cheerful.

Believe me, my dear old friend, ever yours,
C. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, Monday [February 10th, 1845].

My dear Hooker,

I am much obliged for your very agreeable letter; it was very good-natured,
in the midst of your scientific and theatrical dissipation, to think of
writing so long a letter to me. I am astonished at your news, and I must
condole with you in your PRESENT view of the Professorship (Sir J.D. Hooker
was a candidate for the Professorship of Botany at Edinburgh University.),
and most heartily deplore it on my own account. There is something so
chilling in a separation of so many hundred miles, though we did not see
much of each other when nearer. You will hardly believe how deeply I
regret for MYSELF your present prospects. I had looked forward to [our]
seeing much of each other during our lives. It is a heavy disappointment;
and in a mere selfish point of view, as aiding me in my work, your loss is
indeed irreparable. But, on the other hand, I cannot doubt that you take
at present a desponding, instead of bright, view of your prospects: surely
there are great advantages, as well as disadvantages. The place is one of
eminence; and really it appears to me there are so many indifferent
workers, and so few readers, that it is a high advantage, in a purely
scientific point of view, for a good worker to hold a position which leads
others to attend to his work. I forget whether you attended Edinburgh, as
a student, but in my time there was a knot of men who were far from being
the indifferent and dull listeners which you expect for your audience.
Reflect what a satisfaction and honour it would be to MAKE a good botanist
--with your disposition you will be to many what Henslow was at Cambridge
to me and others, a most kind friend and guide. Then what a fine garden,
and how good a Public Library! why, Forbes always regrets the advantages of
Edinburgh for work: think of the inestimable advantage of getting within a
short walk of those noble rocks and hills and sandy shores near Edinburgh!
Indeed, I cannot pity you much, though I pity myself exceedingly in your
loss. Surely lecturing will, in a year or two, with your GREAT capacity
for work (whatever you may be pleased to say to the contrary) become easy,
and you will have a fair time for your Antarctic Flora and general views of
distribution. If I thought your Professorship would stop your work, I
should wish it and all the good worldly consequences at el Diavolo. I know
I shall live to see you the first authority in Europe on that grand
subject, that almost keystone of the laws of creation, Geographical
Distribution. Well, there is one comfort, you will be at Kew, no doubt,
every year, so I shall finish by forcing down your throat my sincere
congratulations. Thanks for all your news. I grieve to hear Humboldt is
failing; one cannot help feeling, though unrightly, that such an end is
humiliating: even when I saw him he talked beyond all reason. If you see
him again, pray give him my most respectful and kind compliments, and say
that I never forget that my whole course of life is due to having read and
re-read as a youth his 'Personal Narrative.' How true and pleasing are all
your remarks on his kindness; think how many opportunities you will have,
in your new place, of being a Humboldt to others. Ask him about the river
in N.E. Europe, with the Flora very different on its opposite banks. I
have got and read your Wilkes; what a feeble book in matter and style, and
how splendidly got up! Do write me a line from Berlin. Also thanks for
the proof-sheets. I do not, however, mean proof plates; I value them, as
saving me copying extracts. Farewell, my dear Hooker, with a heavy heart I
wish you joy of your prospects.

Your sincere friend,
C. DARWIN.

[The second edition of the 'Journal,' to which the following letter refers,
was completed between April 25th and August 25th. It was published by Mr.
Murray in the 'Colonial and Home Library,' and in this more accessible form
soon had a large sale.

Up to the time of his first negotiations with Mr. Murray for its
publication in this form, he had received payment only in the form of a
large number of presentation copies, and he seems to have been glad to sell
the copyright of the second edition to Mr. Murray for 150 pounds.

The points of difference between it and the first edition are of interest
chiefly in connection with the growth of the author's views on evolution,
and will be considered later.]

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
Down [July, 1845].

My dear Lyell,

I send you the first part (No doubt proof-sheets.) of the new edition [of
the 'Journal of Researches'], which I so entirely owe to you. You will see
that I have ventured to dedicate it to you (The dedication of the second
edition of the 'Journal of Researches,' is as follows:--"To Charles Lyell,
Esq., F.R.S., this second edition is dedicated with grateful pleasure--as
an acknowledgment that the chief part of whatever scientific merit this
Journal and the other works of the Author may possess, has been derived
from studying the well-known and admirable 'Principles of Geology.'"), and
I trust that this cannot be disagreeable. I have long wished, not so much
for your sake, as for my own feelings of honesty, to acknowledge more
plainly than by mere reference, how much I geologically owe you. Those
authors, however, who like you, educate people's minds as well as teach
them special facts, can never, I should think, have full justice done them
except by posterity, for the mind thus insensibly improved can hardly
perceive its own upward ascent. I had intended putting in the present
acknowledgment in the third part of my Geology, but its sale is so
exceedingly small that I should not have had the satisfaction of thinking
that as far as lay in my power I had owned, though imperfectly, my debt.
Pray do not think that I am so silly, as to suppose that my dedication can
any ways gratify you, except so far as I trust you will receive it, as a
most sincere mark of my gratitude and friendship. I think I have improved
this edition, especially the second part, which I have just finished. I
have added a good deal about the Fuegians, and cut down into half the
mercilessly long discussion on climate and glaciers, etc. I do not
recollect anything added to the first part, long enough to call your
attention to; there is a page of description of a very curious breed of
oxen in Banda Oriental. I should like you to read the few last pages;
there is a little discussion on extinction, which will not perhaps strike
you as new, though it has so struck me, and has placed in my mind all the
difficulties with respect to the causes of extinction, in the same class
with other difficulties which are generally quite overlooked and
undervalued by naturalists; I ought, however, to have made my discussion
longer and shewn by facts, as I easily could, how steadily every species
must be checked in its numbers.

I received your Travels ('Travels in North America,' 2 volumes, 1845.)
yesterday; and I like exceedingly its external and internal appearance; I
read only about a dozen pages last night (for I was tired with hay-making),
but I saw quite enough to perceive how VERY much it will interest me, and
how many passages will be scored. I am pleased to find a good sprinkling
of Natural History; I shall be astonished if it does not sell very
largely...

How sorry I am to think that we shall not see you here again for so long; I
wish you may knock yourself a little bit up before you start and require a
day's fresh air, before the ocean breezes blow on you...

Ever yours,
C. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
Down, Saturday [August 1st, 1845].

My dear Lyell,

I have been wishing to write to you for a week past, but every five
minutes' worth of strength has been expended in getting out my second part.
(Of the second edition of the 'Journal of Researches.') Your note pleased
me a good deal more I dare say than my dedication did you, and I thank you
much for it. Your work has interested me much, and I will give you my
impressions, though, as I never thought you would care to hear what I
thought of the non-scientific parts, I made no notes, nor took pains to
remember any particular impression of two-thirds of the first volume. The
first impression I should say would be with most (though I have literally
seen not one soul since reading it) regret at there not being more of the
non-scientific [parts]. I am not a good judge, for I have read nothing,
i.e. non-scientific about North America, but the whole struck me as very
new, fresh, and interesting. Your discussions bore to my mind the evident
stamp of matured thought, and of conclusions drawn from facts observed by
yourself, and not from the opinions of the people whom you met; and this I
suspect is comparatively rare.

Your slave discussion disturbed me much; but as you would care no more for
my opinion on this head than for the ashes of this letter, I will say
nothing except that it gave me some sleepless, most uncomfortable hours.
Your account of the religious state of the States particularly interested
me; I am surprised throughout at your very proper boldness against the
Clergy. In your University chapter the Clergy, and not the State of
Education, are most severely and justly handled, and this I think is very
bold, for I conceive you might crush a leaden-headed old Don, as a Don,
with more safety, than touch the finger of that Corporate Animal, the
Clergy. What a contrast in Education does England show itself! Your
apology (using the term, like the old religionists who meant anything but
an apology) for lectures, struck me as very clever; but all the arguments
in the world on your side, are not equal to one course of Jamieson's
Lectures on the other side, which I formerly for my sins experienced.
Although I had read about the 'Coalfields in North America,' I never in the
smallest degree really comprehended their area, their thickness and
favourable position; nothing hardly astounded me more in your book.

Some few parts struck me as rather heterogeneous, but I do not know whether
to an extent that at all signified. I missed however, a good deal, some
general heading to the chapters, such as the two or three principal places
visited. One has no right to expect an author to write down to the zero of
geographical ignorance of the reader; but I not knowing a single place, was
occasionally rather plagued in tracing your course. Sometimes in the
beginning of a chapter, in one paragraph your course was traced through a
half dozen places; anyone, as ignorant as myself, if he could be found,
would prefer such a disturbing paragraph left out. I cut your map loose,
and I found that a great comfort; I could not follow your engraved track.
I think in a second edition, interspaces here and there of one line open,
would be an improvement. By the way, I take credit to myself in giving my
Journal a less scientific air in having printed all names of species and
genera in Romans; the printing looks, also, better. All the illustrations
strike me as capital, and the map is an admirable volume in itself. If
your 'Principles' had not met with such universal admiration, I should have
feared there would have been too much geology in this for the general
reader; certainly all that the most clear and light style could do, has
been done. To myself the geology was an excellent, well-condensed, well-
digested resume of all that has been made out in North America, and every
geologist ought to be grateful to you. The summing up of the Niagara
chapter appeared to me the grandest part; I was also deeply interested by
your discussion on the origin of the Silurian formations. I have made
scores of SCORES marking passages hereafter useful to me.

All the coal theory appeared to me very good; but it is no use going on
enumerating in this manner. I wish there had been more Natural History; I
liked ALL the scattered fragments. I have now given you an exact
transcript of my thoughts, but they are hardly worth your reading...

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
Down, August 25th [1845].

My dear Lyell,

This is literally the first day on which I have had any time to spare; and
I will amuse myself by beginning a letter to you...

I was delighted with your letter in which you touch on Slavery; I wish the
same feelings had been apparent in your published discussion. But I will
not write on this subject, I should perhaps annoy you, and most certainly
myself. I have exhaled myself with a paragraph or two in my Journal on the
sin of Brazilian slavery; you perhaps will think that it is in answer to
you; but such is not the case. I have remarked on nothing which I did not
hear on the coast of South America. My few sentences, however, are merely
an explosion of feeling. How could you relate so placidly that atrocious
sentiment (In the passage referred to, Lyell does not give his own views,
but those of a planter.) about separating children from their parents; and
in the next page speak of being distressed at the whites not having
prospered; I assure you the contrast made me exclaim out. But I have
broken my intention, and so no more on this odious deadly subject.

There is a favourable, but not strong enough review on you, in the
"Gardeners' Chronicle". I am sorry to see that Lindley abides by the
carbonic acid gas theory. By the way, I was much pleased by Lindley
picking out my extinction paragraphs and giving them uncurtailed. To my
mind, putting the comparative rarity of existing species in the same
category with extinction has removed a great weight; though of course it
does not explain anything, it shows that until we can explain comparative
rarity, we ought not to feel any surprise at not explaining extinction...

I am much pleased to hear of the call for a new edition of the
'Principles': what glorious good that work has done. I fear this time you
will not be amongst the old rocks; how I shall rejoice to live to see you
publish and discover another stage below the Silurian--it would be the
grandest step possible, I think. I am very glad to hear what progress
Bunbury is making in fossil Botany; there is a fine hiatus for him to fill
up in this country. I will certainly call on him this winter...From what
little I saw of him, I can quite believe everything which you say of his
talents...

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Shrewsbury [1845?].

My dear Hooker,

I have just received your note, which has astonished me, and has most truly
grieved me. I never for one minute doubted of your success, for I most
erroneously imagined, that merit was sure to gain the day. I feel most
sure that the day will come soon, when those who have voted against you, if
they have any shame or conscience in them, will be ashamed at having
allowed politics to blind their eyes to your qualifications, and those
qualifications vouched for by Humboldt and Brown! Well, those testimonials
must be a consolation to you. Proh pudor! I am vexed and indignant by
turns. I cannot even take comfort in thinking that I shall see more of
you, and extract more knowledge from your well-arranged stock. I am
pleased to think, that after having read a few of your letters, I never
once doubted the position you will ultimately hold amongst European
Botanists. I can think about nothing else, otherwise I should like [to]
discuss 'Cosmos' (A translation of Humboldt's 'Kosmos.') with you. I trust
you will pay me and my wife a visit this autumn at Down. I shall be at
Down on the 24th, and till then moving about.

My dear Hooker, allow me to call myself
Your very true friend,
C. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
October 8th [1845], Shrewsbury.

...I have lately been taking a little tour to see a farm I have purchased
in Lincolnshire (He speaks of his Lincolnshire farm in a letter to Henslow
(July 4th):--"I have bought a farm in Lincolnshire, and when I go there
this autumn, I mean to see what I can do in providing any cottage on my
small estate with gardens. It is a hopeless thing to look to, but I
believe few things would do this country more good in future ages than the
destruction of primogeniture, so as to lessen the difference in land-
wealth, and make more small freeholders. How atrociously unjust are the
stamp laws, which render it so expensive for the poor man to buy his
quarter of an acre; it makes one's blood burn with indignation.") and then
to York, where I visited the Dean of Manchester (Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert.
The visit is mentioned in a letter to Dr. Hooker:--"I have been taking a
little tour, partly on business, and visited the Dean of Manchester, and
had very much interesting talk with him on hybrids, sterility, and
variation, etc., etc. He is full of self-gained knowledge, but knows
surprisingly little what others have done on the same subjects. He is very
heterodox on 'species': not much better as most naturalists would esteem
it, than poor Mr. Vestiges.") the great maker of Hybrids, who gave me much
curious information. I also visited Waterton at Walton Hall, and was
extremely amused with my visit there. He is an amusing strange fellow; at
our early dinner, our party consisted of two Catholic priests and two
Mulattresses! He is past sixty years old, and the day before ran down and
caught a leveret in a turnip-field. It is a fine old house, and the lake
swarms with water-fowl. I then saw Chatsworth, and was in transport with
the great hothouse; it is a perfect fragment of a tropical forest, and the
sight made me think with delight of old recollections. My little ten-day
tour made me feel wonderfully strong at the time, but the good effects did
not last. My wife, I am sorry to say, does not get very strong, and the
children are the hope of the family, for they are all happy, life, and
spirits. I have been much interested with Sedgwick's review (Sedgwick's
review of the 'Vestiges of Creation' in the 'Edinburgh Review,' July,
1845.) though I find it far from popular with our scientific readers. I
think some few passages savour of the dogmatism of the pulpit, rather than
of the philosophy of the Professor's Chair; and some of the wit strikes me
as only worthy of -- in the 'Quarterly.' Nevertheless, it is a grand piece
of argument against mutability of species, and I read it with fear and
trembling, but was well pleased to find that I had not overlooked any of
the arguments, though I had put them to myself as feebly as milk and water.
Have you read 'Cosmos' yet? The English translation is wretched, and the
semi-metaphysico-politico descriptions in the first part are barely
intelligible; but I think the volcanic discussion well worth your
attention, it has astonished me by its vigour and information. I grieve to
find Humboldt an adorer of Von Buch, with his classification of volcanos,
craters of elevation, etc., etc., and carbonic acid gas atmosphere. He is
indeed a wonderful man.

I hope to get home in a fortnight and stick to my wearyful South America
till I finish it. I shall be very anxious to hear how you get on from the
Horners, but you must not think of wasting your time by writing to me. We
shall miss, indeed, your visits to Down, and I shall feel a lost man in
London without my morning "house of call" at Hart Street...