Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1

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].