LIFE AT DOWN.
1842-1854.
"My life goes on like clockwork, and I am fixed on the spot where I
shall end it."
Letter to Captain Fitz-Roy, October, 1846.
Certain letters which, chronologically considered, belong to the period
1845-54 have been utilised in a later chapter where the growth of the
_Origin of Species_ is described. In the present chapter we only get
occasional hints of the growth of my father's views, and we may suppose
ourselves to be seeing his life, as it might have appeared to those who
had no knowledge of the quiet development of his theory of evolution
during this period.
On Sept. 14, 1842, my father left London with his family and settled at
Down.[109] In the Autobiographical chapter, his motives for moving into
the country are briefly given. He speaks of the attendance at scientific
societies and ordinary social duties as suiting his health so "badly
that we resolved to live in the country, which we both preferred and
have never repented of." His intention of keeping up with scientific
life in London is expressed in a letter to Fox (Dec., 1842):--
"I hope by going up to town for a night every fortnight or three weeks,
to keep up my communication with scientific men and my own zeal, and so
not to turn into a complete Kentish hog."
Visits to London of this kind were kept up for some years at the cost of
much exertion on his part. I have often heard him speak of the wearisome
drives of ten miles to or from Croydon or Sydenham--the nearest
stations--with an old gardener acting as coachman, who drove with great
caution and slowness up and down the many hills. In later years,
regular scientific intercourse with London became, as before mentioned,
an impossibility.
The choice of Down was rather the result of despair than of actual
preference: my father and mother were weary of house-hunting, and the
attractive points about the place thus seemed to them to counterbalance
its somewhat more obvious faults. It had at least one desideratum,
namely, quietness. Indeed it would have been difficult to find a more
retired place so near to London. In 1842 a coach drive of some twenty
miles was the usual means of access to Down; and even now that railways
have crept closer to it, it is singularly out of the world, with nothing
to suggest the neighbourhood of London, unless it be the dull haze of
smoke that sometimes clouds the sky. The village stands in an angle
between two of the larger high-roads of the country, one leading to
Tunbridge and the other to Westerham and Edenbridge. It is cut off from
the Weald by a line of steep chalk hills on the south, and an abrupt
hill, now smoothed down by a cutting and embankment, must formerly have
been something of a barrier against encroachments from the side of
London. In such a situation, a village, communicating with the main
lines of traffic, only by stony tortuous lanes, may well have preserved
its retired character. Nor is it hard to believe in the smugglers and
their strings of pack-horses making their way up from the lawless old
villages of the Weald, of which the memory still existed when my father
settled in Down. The village stands on solitary upland country, 500 to
600 feet above the sea--a country with little natural beauty, but
possessing a certain charm in the shaws, or straggling strips of wood,
capping the chalky banks and looking down upon the quiet ploughed lands
of the valleys. The village, of three or four hundred inhabitants,
consists of three small streets of cottages meeting in front of the
little flint-built church. It is a place where new-comers are seldom
seen, and the names occurring far back in the old church registers are
still known in the village. The smock-frock is not yet quite extinct,
though chiefly used as a ceremonial dress by the "bearers" at funerals;
but as a boy I remember the purple or green smocks of the men at church.
The house stands a quarter of a mile from the village, and is built,
like so many houses of the last century, as near as possible to the
road--a narrow lane winding away to the Westerham high-road. In 1842, it
was dull and unattractive enough: a square brick building of three
storeys, covered with shabby whitewash, and hanging tiles. The garden
had none of the shrubberies or walls that now give shelter; it was
overlooked from the lane, and was open, bleak, and desolate. One of my
father's first undertakings was to lower the lane by about two feet, and
to build a flint wall along that part of it which bordered the garden.
The earth thus excavated was used in making banks and mounds round the
lawn: these were planted with evergreens, which now give to the garden
its retired and sheltered character.
The house was made to look neater by being covered with stucco, but the
chief improvement effected was the building of a large bow extending up
through three storeys. This bow became covered with a tangle of
creepers, and pleasantly varied the south side of the house. The
drawing-room, with its verandah opening into the garden, as well as the
study in which my father worked during the later years of his life, were
added at subsequent dates.
Eighteen acres of land were sold with the house, of which twelve acres
on the south side of the house form a pleasant field, scattered with
fair-sized oaks and ashes. From this field a strip was cut off and
converted into a kitchen garden, in which the experimental plot of
ground was situated, and where the greenhouses were ultimately put up.
During the whole of 1843 he was occupied with geological work, the
result of which was published in the spring of the following year. It
was entitled _Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands, visited
during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, together with some brief notices on
the geology of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope_; it formed the
second part of the _Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle_, published
"with the Approval of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's
Treasury." The volume on _Coral Reefs_ forms Part I. of the series, and
was published, as we have seen, in 1842. For the sake of the
non-geological reader, I may here quote Sir A. Geikie's words[110] on
these two volumes--which were up to this time my father's chief
geological works. Speaking of the _Coral Reefs_, he says (p. 17): "This
well-known treatise, the most original of all its author's geological
memoirs, has become one of the classics of geological literature. The
origin of those remarkable rings of coral-rock in mid-ocean has given
rise to much speculation, but no satisfactory solution of the problem
had been proposed. After visiting many of them, and examining also coral
reefs that fringe islands and continents, he offered a theory which for
simplicity and grandeur, strikes every reader with astonishment. It is
pleasant, after the lapse of many years, to recall the delight with
which one first read the _Coral Reefs_, how one watched the facts being
marshalled into their places, nothing being ignored or passed lightly
over; and how, step by step, one was led to the grand conclusion of wide
oceanic subsidence. No more admirable example of scientific method was
ever given to the world, and even if he had written nothing else, the
treatise alone would have placed Darwin in the very front of
investigators of nature."
It is interesting to see in the following extract from one of Lyell's
letters[111] how warmly and readily he embraced the theory. The extract
also gives incidentally some idea of the theory itself.
"I am very full of Darwin's new theory of Coral Islands, and have urged
Whewell to make him read it at our next meeting. I must give up my
volcanic crater theory for ever, though it cost me a pang at first, for
it accounted for so much, the annular form, the central lagoon, the
sudden rising of an isolated mountain in a deep sea; all went so well
with the notion of submerged, crateriform, and conical volcanoes, ...
and then the fact that in the South Pacific we had scarcely any rocks in
the regions of coral islands, save two kinds, coral limestone and
volcanic! Yet in spite of all this, the whole theory is knocked on the
head, and the annular shape and central lagoon have nothing to do with
volcanoes, nor even with a crateriform bottom. Perhaps Darwin told you
when at the Cape what he considers the true cause? Let any mountain be
submerged gradually, and coral grow in the sea in which it is sinking,
and there will be a ring of coral, and finally only a lagoon in the
centre.... Coral islands are the last efforts of drowning continents to
lift their heads above water. Regions of elevation and subsidence in the
ocean may be traced by the state of the coral reefs."
The second part of the _Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle_, _i.e._ the
volume on Volcanic Islands, which specially concerns us now, cannot be
better described than by again quoting from Sir A. Geikie (p. 18):--
"Full of detailed observations, this work still remains the best
authority on the general geological structure of most of the regions it
describes. At the time it was written the 'crater of elevation theory,'
though opposed by Constant Prevost, Scrope, and Lyell, was generally
accepted, at least on the Continent. Darwin, however, could not receive
it as a valid explanation of the facts; and though he did not share the
view of its chief opponents, but ventured to propose a hypothesis of his
own, the observations impartially made and described by him in this
volume must be regarded as having contributed towards the final solution
of the difficulty." Geikie continues (p. 21): "He is one of the earliest
writers to recognize the magnitude of the denudation to which even
recent geological accumulations have been subjected. One of the most
impressive lessons to be learnt from his account of 'Volcanic Islands'
is the prodigious extent to which they have been denuded.... He was
disposed to attribute more of this work to the sea than most geologists
would now admit; but he lived himself to modify his original views, and
on this subject his latest utterances are quite abreast of the time."
An extract from a letter of my father's to Lyell shows his estimate of
his own work. "You have pleased me much by saying that you intend
looking through my _Volcanic Islands_: it cost me eighteen months!!! and
I have heard of very few who have read it.[112] Now I shall feel,
whatever little (and little it is) there is confirmatory of old work, or
new, will work its effect and not be lost."
The second edition of the _Journal of Researches_[113] was completed in
1845. It was published by Mr. Murray in the _Colonial and Home Library_,
and in this more accessible form soon had a large sale.
_C. D. to Lyell._ Down [July, 1845].
MY DEAR LYELL--I send you the first part[114] of the new edition, which
I so entirely owe to you. You will see that I have ventured to dedicate
it to you, 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, &c. 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 shown by facts, as I easily could, how steadily every species
must be checked in its numbers.
A pleasant notice of the _Journal_ occurs in a letter from Humboldt to
Mrs. Austin, dated June 7, 1844[115]:--
"Alas! you have got some one in England whom you do not read--young
Darwin, who went with the expedition to the Straits of Magellan. He has
succeeded far better than myself with the subject I took up. There are
admirable descriptions of tropical nature in his journal, which you do
not read because the author is a zoologist, which you imagine to be
synonymous with bore. Mr. Darwin has another merit, a very rare one in
your country--he has praised me."
_October 1846 to October 1854._
The time between October 1846, and October 1854, was practically given
up to working at the Cirripedia (Barnacles); the results were published
in two volumes by the Ray Society in 1851 and 1854. His volumes on the
Fossil Cirripedes were published by the Palaeontographical Society in
1851 and 1854.
Writing to Sir J. D. Hooker in 1845, my father says: "I hope this next
summer to finish my South American Geology,[116] then to get out a
little Zoology, and hurrah for my species work...." This passage serves
to show that he had at this time no intention of making an exhaustive
study of the Cirripedes. Indeed it would seem that his original
intention was, as I learn from Sir J. D. Hooker, merely to work out one
special problem. This is quite in keeping with the following passage in
the _Autobiography_: "When on the coast of Chile, I found a most curious
form, which burrowed into the shells of Concholepas, and which differed
so much from all other Cirripedes that I had to form a new sub-order for
its sole reception.... To understand the structure of my new Cirripede I
had to examine and dissect many of the common forms; and this gradually
led me on to take up the whole group." In later years he seems to have
felt some doubt as to the value of these eight years of work--for
instance when he wrote in his _Autobiography_--"My work was of
considerable use to me, when I had to discuss in the _Origin of Species_
the principles of a natural classification. Nevertheless I doubt whether
the work was worth the consumption of so much time." Yet I learn from
Sir J. D. Hooker that he certainly recognised at the time its value to
himself as systematic training. Sir Joseph writes to me: "Your father
recognised three stages in his career as a biologist: the mere collector
at Cambridge; the collector and observer in the _Beagle_, and for some
years afterwards; and the trained naturalist after, and only after the
Cirripede work. That he was a thinker all along is true enough, and
there is a vast deal in his writings previous to the Cirripedes that a
trained naturalist could but emulate.... He often alluded to it as a
valued discipline, and added that even the 'hateful' work of digging out
synonyms, and of describing, not only improved his methods but opened
his eyes to the difficulties and merits of the works of the dullest of
cataloguers. One result was that he would never allow a depreciatory
remark to pass unchallenged on the poorest class of scientific workers,
provided that their work was honest, and good of its kind. I have always
regarded it as one of the finest traits of his character,--this generous
appreciation of the hod-men of science, and of their labours ... and it
was monographing the Barnacles that brought it about."
Mr. Huxley allows me to quote his opinion as to the value of the eight
years given to the Cirripedes:--
"In my opinion your sagacious father never did a wiser thing than when
he devoted himself to the years of patient toil which the Cirripede-book
cost him.
"Like the rest of us, he had no proper training in biological science,
and it has always struck me as a remarkable instance of his scientific
insight, that he saw the necessity of giving himself such training, and
of his courage, that he did not shirk the labour of obtaining it.
"The great danger which besets all men of large speculative faculty, is
the temptation to deal with the accepted statements of fact in natural
science, as if they were not only correct, but exhaustive; as if they
might be dealt with deductively, in the same way as propositions in
Euclid may be dealt with. In reality, every such statement, however true
it may be, is true only relatively to the means of observation and the
point of view of those who have enunciated it. So far it may be depended
upon. But whether it will bear every speculative conclusion that may be
logically deduced from it, is quite another question.
"Your father was building a vast superstructure upon the foundations
furnished by the recognised facts of geological and biological science.
In Physical Geography, in Geology proper, in Geographical Distribution,
and in Palaeontology, he had acquired an extensive practical training
during the voyage of the _Beagle_. He knew of his own knowledge the way
in which the raw materials of these branches of science are acquired,
and was therefore a most competent judge of the speculative strain they
would bear. That which he needed, after his return to England, was a
corresponding acquaintance with Anatomy and Development, and their
relation to Taxonomy--and he acquired this by his Cirripede work."
Though he became excessively weary of the work before the end of the
eight years, he had much keen enjoyment in the course of it. Thus he
wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker (1847?):--"As you say, there is an
extraordinary pleasure in pure observation; not but what I suspect the
pleasure in this case is rather derived from comparisons forming in
one's mind with allied structures. After having been so long employed
in writing my old geological observations, it is delightful to use one's
eyes and fingers again." It was, in fact, a return to the work which
occupied so much of his time when at sea during his voyage. Most of his
work was done with the simple dissecting microscope--and it was the need
which he found for higher powers that induced him, in 1846, to buy a
compound microscope. He wrote to Hooker:--"When I was drawing with L., I
was so delighted with the appearance of the objects, especially with
their perspective, as seen through the weak powers of a good compound
microscope, that I am going to order one; indeed, I often have
structures in which the 1/30 is not power enough."
During part of the time covered by the present chapter, my father
suffered perhaps more from ill-health than at any other period of his
life. He felt severely the depressing influence of these long years of
illness; thus as early as 1840 he wrote to Fox: "I am grown a dull, old,
spiritless dog to what I used to be. One gets stupider as one grows
older I think." It is not wonderful that he should so have written, it
is rather to be wondered at that his spirit withstood so great and
constant a strain. He wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker in 1845: "You are very
kind in your inquiries about my health; I have nothing to say about it,
being always much the same, some days better and some worse. I believe I
have not had one whole day, or rather night, without my stomach having
been greatly disordered, during the last three years, and most days
great prostration of strength: thank you for your kindness; many of my
friends, I believe, think me a hypochondriac."
During the whole of the period now under consideration, he was in
constant correspondence with Sir Joseph Hooker. The following
characteristic letter on Sigillaria (a gigantic fossil plant found in
the Coal Measures) was afterwards characterised by himself as not being
"reasoning, or even speculation, but simply as mental rioting."
[Down, 1847?]
" ... I am delighted to hear that Brongniart thought Sigillaria aquatic,
and that Binney considers coal a sort of submarine peat. I would bet 5
to 1 that in twenty years this will be generally admitted;[117] and I do
not care for whatever the botanical difficulties or impossibilities may
be. If I could but persuade myself that Sigillaria and Co. had a good
range of depth, _i.e._ could live from 5 to 10 fathoms under water, all
difficulties of nearly all kinds would be removed (for the simple fact
of muddy ordinary shallow sea implies proximity of land). [N.B.--I am
chuckling to think how you are sneering all this time.] It is not much
of a difficulty, there not being shells with the coal, considering how
unfavourable deep mud is for most Mollusca, and that shells would
probably decay from the humic acid, as seems to take place in peat and
in the _black_ moulds (as Lyell tells me) of the Mississippi. So coal
question settled--Q. E. D. Sneer away!"
The two following extracts give the continuation and conclusion of the
coal battle.
"By the way, as submarine coal made you so wrath, I thought I would
experimentise on Falconer and Bunbury[118] together, and it made [them]
even more savage; 'such infernal nonsense ought to be thrashed out of
me.' Bunbury was more polite and contemptuous. So I now know how to stir
up and show off any Botanist. I wonder whether Zoologists and Geologists
have got their tender points; I wish I could find out."
"I cannot resist thanking you for your most kind note. Pray do not think
that I was annoyed by your letter: I perceived that you had been
thinking with animation, and accordingly expressed yourself strongly,
and so I understood it. Forfend me from a man who weighs every
expression with Scotch prudence. I heartily wish you all success in your
noble problem, and I shall be very curious to have some talk with you
and hear your ultimatum."
He also corresponded with the late Hugh Strickland,--a well-known
ornithologist, on the need of reform in the principle of nomenclature.
The following extract (1849) gives an idea of my father's view:--
"I feel sure as long as species-mongers have their vanity tickled by
seeing their own names appended to a species, because they miserably
described it in two or three lines, we shall have the same _vast_ amount
of bad work as at present, and which is enough to dishearten any man who
is willing to work out any branch with care and time. I find every genus
of Cirripedia has half-a-dozen names, and not one careful description of
any one species in any one genus. I do not believe that this would have
been the case if each man knew that the memory of his own name depended
on his doing his work well, and not upon merely appending a name with a
few wretched lines indicating only a few prominent external
characters."
In 1848 Dr. R. W. Darwin died, and Charles Darwin wrote to Hooker, from
Malvern:--
"On the 13th of November, my poor dear father died, and no one who did
not know him would believe that a man above eighty-three years old could
have retained so tender and affectionate a disposition, with all his
sagacity unclouded to the last. I was at the time so unwell, that I was
unable to travel, which added to my misery.
"All this winter I have been bad enough ... and my nervous system began
to be affected, so that my hands trembled, and head was often swimming.
I was not able to do anything one day out of three, and was altogether
too dispirited to write to you, or to do anything but what I was
compelled. I thought I was rapidly going the way of all flesh. Having
heard, accidentally, of two persons who had received much benefit from
the water-cure, I got Dr. Gully's book, and made further inquiries, and
at last started here, with wife, children, and all our servants. We have
taken a house for two months, and have been here a fortnight. I am
already a little stronger.... Dr. Gully feels pretty sure he can do me
good, which most certainly the regular doctors could not.... I feel
certain that the water-cure is no quackery.
"How I shall enjoy getting back to Down with renovated health, if such
is to be my good fortune, and resuming the beloved Barnacles. Now I hope
that you will forgive me for my negligence in not having sooner answered
your letter. I was uncommonly interested by the sketch you give of your
intended grand expedition, from which I suppose you will soon be
returning. How earnestly I hope that it may prove in every way
successful...."
_C. D. to W. D. Fox_. [March 7, 1852.]
Our long silence occurred to me a few weeks since, and I had then
thought of writing, but was idle. I congratulate and condole with you on
your _tenth_ child; but please to observe when I have a tenth, send only
condolences to me. We have now seven children, all well, thank God, as
well as their mother; of these seven, five are boys; and my father used
to say that it was certain that a boy gave as much trouble as three
girls; so that _bona fide_ we have seventeen children. It makes me sick
whenever I think of professions; all seem hopelessly bad, and as yet I
cannot see a ray of light. I should very much like to talk over this
(by the way, my three bugbears are Californian and Australian gold,
beggaring me by making my money on mortgage worth nothing; the French
coming by the Westerham and Sevenoaks roads, and therefore enclosing
Down; and thirdly, professions for my boys), and I should like to talk
about education, on which you ask me what we are doing. No one can more
truly despise the old stereotyped stupid classical education than I do;
but yet I have not had courage to break through the trammels. After many
doubts we have just sent our eldest boy to Rugby, where for his age he
has been very well placed.... I honour, admire, and envy you for
educating your boys at home. What on earth shall you do with your boys?
Very many thanks for your most kind and large invitation to Delamere,
but I fear we can hardly compass it. I dread going anywhere, on account
of my stomach so easily failing under any excitement. I rarely even now
go to London, not that I am at all worse, perhaps rather better, and
lead a very comfortable life with my three hours of daily work, but it
is the life of a hermit. My nights are _always_ bad, and that stops my
becoming vigorous. You ask about water-cure. I take at intervals of two
or three months, five or six weeks of _moderately_ severe treatment, and
always with good effect. Do you come here, I pray and beg whenever you
can find time; you cannot tell how much pleasure it would give me and E.
What pleasant times we had in drinking coffee in your rooms at Christ's
College, and think of the glories of Crux-major.[119] Ah, in those days
there were no professions for sons, no ill-health to fear for them, no
Californian gold, no French invasions. How paramount the future is to
the present when one is surrounded by children. My dread is hereditary
ill-health. Even death is better for them.
My dear Fox, your sincere friend.
P.S.--Susan[120] has lately been working in a way which I think truly
heroic about the scandalous violation of the Act against children
climbing chimneys. We have set up a little Society in Shrewsbury to
prosecute those who break the law. It is all Susan's doing. She has had
very nice letters from Lord Shaftesbury and the Duke of Sutherland, but
the brutal Shropshire squires are as hard as stones to move. The Act out
of London seems most commonly violated. It makes one shudder to fancy
one of one's own children at seven years old being forced up a
chimney--to say nothing of the consequent loathsome disease and
ulcerated limbs, and utter moral degradation. If you think strongly on
this subject, do make some enquiries; add to your many good works, this
other one, and try to stir up the magistrates....
The following letter refers to the Royal Medal, which was awarded to him
in November, 1853:
_C. D. to J. D. Hooker_. Down [November 1853].
MY DEAR HOOKER--Amongst my letters received this morning, I opened first
one from Colonel Sabine; the contents certainly surprised me very much,
but, though the letter was a _very kind one_, somehow, I cared very
little indeed for the announcement it contained. I then opened yours,
and such is the effect of warmth, friendship, and kindness from one that
is loved, that the very same fact, told as you told it, made me glow
with pleasure till my very heart throbbed. Believe me, I shall not soon
forget the pleasure of your letter. Such hearty, affectionate sympathy
is worth more than all the medals that ever were or will be coined.
Again, my dear Hooker, I thank you. I hope Lindley[121] will never hear
that he was a competitor against me; for really it is almost
_ridiculous_ (of course you would never repeat that I said this, for it
would be thought by others, though not, I believe by you, to be
affectation) his not having the medal long before me; I must feel _sure_
that you did quite right to propose him; and what a good, dear, kind
fellow you are, nevertheless, to rejoice in this honour being bestowed
on me.
What _pleasure_ I have felt on the occasion, I owe almost entirely to
you.[122]
Farewell, my dear Hooker, yours affectionately.
The following series of extracts, must, for want of space, serve as a
sketch of his feeling with regard to his seven years' work at
Barnacles[123]:--
_September 1849._--"It makes me groan to think that probably I shall
never again have the exquisite pleasure of making out some new district,
of evolving geological light out of some troubled dark region. So I must
make the best of my Cirripedia...."
_October 1849._--"I have of late been at work at mere species
describing, which is much more difficult than I expected, and has much
the same sort of interest as a puzzle has; but I confess I often feel
wearied with the work, and cannot help sometimes asking myself what is
the good of spending a week or fortnight in ascertaining that certain
just perceptible differences blend together and constitute varieties and
not species. As long as I am on anatomy I never feel myself in that
disgusting, horrid, _cui bono_, inquiring, humour. What miserable work,
again, it is searching for priority of names. I have just finished two
species, which possess seven generic, and twenty-four specific names! My
chief comfort is, that the work must be sometime done, and I may as well
do it, as any one else."
_October 1852._--"I am at work at the second volume of the Cirripedia,
of which creatures I am wonderfully tired. I hate a Barnacle as no man
ever did before, not even a sailor in a slow-sailing ship. My first
volume is out; the only part worth looking at is on the sexes of Ibla
and Scalpellum. I hope by next summer to have done with my tedious
work."
_July 1853._--"I am _extremely_ glad to hear that you approved of my
cirripedial volume. I have spent an almost ridiculous amount of labour
on the subject, and certainly would never have undertaken it had I
foreseen what a job it was."
In September, 1854, his Cirripede work was practically finished, and he
wrote to Sir J. Hooker:
"I have been frittering away my time for the last several weeks in a
wearisome manner, partly idleness, and odds and ends, find sending ten
thousand Barnacles[124] out of the house all over the world. But I shall
now in a day or two begin to look over my old notes on species. What a
deal I shall have to discuss with you; I shall have to look sharp that I
do not 'progress' into one of the greatest bores in life, to the few
like you with lots of knowledge."
FOOTNOTES:
[109] I must not omit to mention a member of the household who
accompanied him. This was his butler, Joseph Parslow, who remained in
the family, a valued friend and servant, for forty years, and became, as
Sir Joseph Hooker once remarked to me, "an integral part of the family,
and felt to be such by all visitors at the house."
[110] Charles Darwin, _Nature_ Series, 1882.
[111] To Sir John Herschel, May 24, 1837. _Life of Sir Charles Lyell_,
vol. ii. p. 12.
[112] He wrote to Herbert:--"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." And to Fitz-Roy,
on the same subject, he wrote: "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.'"
[113] The first edition was published in 1839, as vol. iii. of the
_Voyages of the 'Adventure' and 'Beagle.'_
[114] No doubt proof-sheets.
[115] _Three Generations of Englishwomen_, by Janet Ross (1888), vol. i.
p. 195.
[116] This refers to the third and last of his geological books,
_Geological Observation on South America_, which was published in 1846.
A sentence from a letter of Dec. 11, 1860, may be quoted here--"David
Forbes has been carefully working the Geology of Chile, and as I value
praise for accurate observation far higher than for any other quality,
forgive (if you can) the _insufferable_ vanity of my copying the last
sentence in his note: 'I regard your Monograph on Chile as, without
exception, one of the finest specimens of Geological inquiry.' I feel
inclined to strut like a turkey-cock!"
[117] An unfulfilled prophecy.
[118] The late Sir C. Bunbury, well known as a palaeobotanist.
[119] The beetle Panagaeus crux-major.
[120] His sister.
[121] John Lindley (b. 1799, d. 1865) was the son of a nurseryman near
Norwich, through whose failure in business he was thrown at the age of
twenty on his own resources. He was befriended by Sir W. Hooker, and
employed as assistant librarian by Sir J. Banks. He seems to have had
enormous capacity for work, and is said to have translated Richard's
_Analyse du Fruit_ at one sitting of two days and three nights. He
became Assistant-Secretary to the Horticultural Society, and in 1829 was
appointed Professor of Botany at University College, a post which he
held for upwards of thirty years. His writings are numerous; the best
known being perhaps his _Vegetable Kingdom_, published in 1846.
[122] Shortly afterwards he received a fresh mark of esteem from his
warm-hearted friend: "Hooker's book (_Himalayan Journal_) is out, and
_most beautifully_ got up. He has honoured me beyond measure by
dedicating it to me!"
[123] In 1860 he wrote to Lyell: "Is not Krohn a good fellow? I have
long meant to write to him. He has been working at Cirripedes, and has
detected two or three gigantic blunders, about which, I thank Heaven, I
spoke rather doubtfully. Such difficult dissection that even Huxley
failed. It is chiefly the interpretation which I put on parts that is so
wrong, and not the parts which I describe. But they were gigantic
blunders, and why I say all this is because Krohn, instead of crowing at
all, pointed out my errors with the utmost gentleness and pleasantness."
There are two papers by Aug. Krohn, one on the Cement Glands, and the
other on the development of Cirripedes, _Weigmann's Archiv._ xxv. and
xxvi. See _Autobiography_, p. 39, where my father remarks, "I blundered
dreadfully about the cement glands."
[124] The duplicate type-specimens of my father's Cirripedes are in the
Liverpool Free Public Museum, as I learn from the Rev. H. H. Higgins.