Marietta Holley - "Samantha at Saratoga"

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The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I

h >> his son >> The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I




Ever yours,
C. DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, January 20th, 1859.

My dear Hooker,

I should very much like to borrow Heer at some future time, for I want to
read nothing perplexing at present till my Abstract is done. Your last
very instructive letter shall make me very cautious on the hyper-
speculative points we have been discussing.

When you say you cannot master the train of thoughts, I know well enough
that they are too doubtful and obscure to be mastered. I have often
experienced what you call the humiliating feeling of getting more and more
involved in doubt the more one thinks of the facts and reasoning on
doubtful points. But I always comfort myself with thinking of the future,
and in the full belief that the problems which we are just entering on,
will some day be solved; and if we just break the ground we shall have done
some service, even if we reap no harvest.

I quite agree that we only differ in DEGREE about the means of dispersal,
and that I think a satisfactory amount of accordance. You put in a very
striking manner the mutation of our continents, and I quite agree; I doubt
only about our oceans.

I also agree (I am in a very agreeing frame of mind) with your argumentum
ad hominem, about the highness of the Australian Flora from the number of
species and genera; but here comes in a superlative bothering element of
doubt, viz., the effect of isolation.

The only point in which I PRESUMPTUOUSLY rather demur is about the status
of the naturalised plants in Australia. I think Muller speaks of their
having spread largely beyond cultivated ground; and I can hardly believe
that our European plants would occupy stations so barren that the native
plants could not live there. I should require much evidence to make me
believe this. I have written this note merely to thank you, as you will
see it requires no answer.

I have heard to my amazement this morning from Phillips that the Geological
Council have given me the Wollaston Medal!!!

Ever yours,
CHARLES DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, January 23d, 1859.

...I enclose letters to you and me from Wallace. I admire extremely the
spirit in which they are written. I never felt very sure what he would
say. He must be an amiable man. Please return that to me, and Lyell ought
to be told how well satisfied he is. These letters have vividly brought
before me how much I owe to your and Lyell's most kind and generous conduct
in all this affair.

...How glad I shall be when the Abstract is finished, and I can rest!...


CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE.
Down, January 25th [1859].

My dear Sir,

I was extremely much pleased at receiving three days ago your letter to me
and that to Dr. Hooker. Permit me to say how heartily I admire the spirit
in which they are written. Though I had absolutely nothing whatever to do
in leading Lyell and Hooker to what they thought a fair course of action,
yet I naturally could not but feel anxious to hear what your impression
would be. I owe indirectly much to you and them; for I almost think that
Lyell would have proved right, and I should never have completed my larger
work, for I have found my Abstract hard enough with my poor health, but
now, thank God, I am in my last chapter but one. My Abstract will make a
small volume of 400 or 500 pages. Whenever published, I will, of course,
send you a copy, and then you will see what I mean about the part which I
believe selection has played with domestic productions. It is a very
different part, as you suppose, from that played by "Natural Selection." I
sent off, by the same address as this note, a copy of the 'Journal of the
Linnean Society,' and subsequently I have sent some half-dozen copies of
the paper. I have many other copies at your disposal...

I am glad to hear that you have been attending to birds' nests. I have
done so, though almost exclusively under one point of view, viz., to show
that instincts vary, so that selection could work on and improve them. Few
other instincts, so to speak, can be preserved in a Museum.

Many thanks for your offer to look after horses' stripes; If there are any
donkeys, pray add them. I am delighted to hear that you have collected
bees' combs...This is an especial hobby of mine, and I think I can throw a
light on the subject. If you can collect duplicates, at no very great
expense, I should be glad of some specimens for myself with some bees of
each kind. Young, growing, and irregular combs, and those which have not
had pupae, are most valuable for measurements and examination. Their edges
should be well protected against abrasion.

Every one whom I have seen has thought your paper very well written and
interesting. It puts my extracts (written in 1839, now just twenty years
ago!), which I must say in apology were never for an instant intended for
publication, into the shade.

You ask about Lyell's frame of mind. I think he is somewhat staggered, but
does not give in, and speaks with horror, often to me, of what a thing it
would be, and what a job it would be for the next edition of 'The
Principles,' if he were "PERverted." But he is most candid and honest, and
I think will end by being PERverted. Dr. Hooker has become almost as
heterodox as you or I, and I look at Hooker as BY FAR the most capable
judge in Europe.

Most cordially do I wish you health and entire success in all your
pursuits, and, God knows, if admirable zeal and energy deserve success,
most amply do you deserve it. I look at my own career as nearly run out.
If I can publish my Abstract and perhaps my greater work on the same
subject, I shall look at my course as done.

Believe me, my dear sir, yours very sincerely,
C. DARWIN.


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

My dear Hooker,

Here is an odd, though very little, fact. I think it would be hardly
possible to name a bird which apparently could have less to do with
distribution than a Petrel. Sir W. Milner, at St. Kilda, cut open some
young nestling Petrels, and he found large, curious nuts in their crops; I
suspect picked up by parent birds from the Gulf stream. He seems to value
these nuts excessively. I have asked him (but I doubt whether he will) to
send a nut to Sir William Hooker (I gave this address for grandeur sake) to
see if any of you can name it and its native country. Will you PLEASE
MENTION this to Sir William Hooker, and if the nut does arrive, will you
oblige me by returning it to "Sir W. Milner, Bart., Nunappleton,
Tadcaster," in a registered letter, and I will repay you postage. Enclose
slip of paper with the name and country if you can, and let me hereafter
know. Forgive me asking you to take this much trouble; for it is a funny
little fact after my own heart.

Now for another subject. I have finished my Abstract of the chapter on
Geographical Distribution, as bearing on my subject. I should like you
much to read it; but I say this, believing that you will not do so, if, as
I believe to be the case, you are extra busy. On my honour, I shall not be
mortified, and I earnestly beg you not to do it, if it will bother you. I
want it, because I here feel especially unsafe, and errors may have crept
in. Also, I should much like to know what parts you will MOST VEHEMENTLY
object to. I know we do, and must, differ widely on several heads.
Lastly, I should like particularly to know whether I have taken anything
from you, which you would like to retain for first publication; but I think
I have chiefly taken from your published works, and, though I have several
times, in this chapter and elsewhere, acknowledged your assistance, I am
aware that it is not possible for me in the Abstract to do it sufficiently.
("I never did pick any one's pocket, but whilst writing my present chapter
I keep on feeling (even when differing most from you) just as if I were
stealing from you, so much do I owe to your writings and conversation, so
much more than mere acknowledgments show."--Letter to Sir J.D. Hooker,
1859.) But again let me say that you must not offer to read it if very
irksome. It is long--about ninety pages, I expect, when fully copied out.

I hope you are all well. Moor Park has done me some good.

Yours affectionately,
C. DARWIN.

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.

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