Volume I Part 20 (1/2)
I do indeed hope all your vexations and trouble with respect to our voyage, whichHAS an end, have come to a close If you do not receive y you have expended in His Majesty's service, you will be most hardly treated
I put my radical sisters into an uproar at sos, I would say shabby) proceedings of our Governlory of the fae IV put up in his sitting-rooade, and by the time we meet my politics will be as firmly fixed and as wisely founded as ever they were
I thought when I began this letter I would convince you what a steady and sober fra most precious nonsense Two or three of our labourers yesterday iot most excessively drunk in honour of the arrival of Master Charles Who then shall gainsay if Master Charles himself chooses to make himself a fool Good-bye God bless you! I hope you are as happy, but much wiser, than your most sincere but unworthy philosopher,
CHAS DARWIN
CHAPTER 1VII -- LONDON AND CAMBRIDGE
1836-1842
[The period illustrated by the following letters includes the years between le” and his settling at Down It is radual appearance of that weakness of health which ultimately forced him to leave London and take up his abode for the rest of his life in a quiet country house]
In June, 1841, he writes to Lyell: ”My father scarcely see for soest the conclusion that the 'race is for the strong,' and that I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others make in science”
There is no evidence of any intention of entering a profession after his return froe, and early in 1840 he wrote to Fitz-Roy: ”I have nothing to wish for, excepting stronger health to go on with the subjects to which I have joyfully determined to devote my life”
These two conditions--permanent ill-health and a passionate love of scientific work for its own sake--determined thus early in his career, the character of his whole future life They impelled him to lead a retired life of constant labour, carried on to the utnally falsified his melancholy prophecy
The end of the last chapter saw my father safely arrived at Shrewsbury on October 4, 1836, ”after an absence of five years and two days” He wrote to Fox: ”You cannot ihtful my first visit was at home; it orth the banish enjoy, for in the last days of October he was at Greenwich unpacking specile” As to the destination of the collections he writes, soly, to Henslow:--
”I have not reat men I find, as you told me, that they are all overwhelmed with their own business Mr Lyell has entered, in the MOST good-naturedasked, into all my plans He tells me, however, the same story, that I must do all myself Mr Owen seems anxious to dissect some of the animals in spirits, and, besides these two, I have scarcely met any one who seems to wish to possess any ofto examine some of the corallines I see it is quite unreasonable to hope for a minute that any man will undertake the examination of a whole order It is clear the collectors so much outnumber the real naturalists that the latter have no time to spare
”I do not even find that the Collections care for receiving the unnaical Society, then at 33 Bruton Street The collection was some years later broken up and dispersed) is nearly full, and upwards of a thousand specimens remain unmounted I dare say the British Museum would receive thereat respect even for the present state of that establishment Your plan will be not only the best, but the only one, naether the different fa in different branches, may want specimens But it appears to me [that] to do this it will be almost necessary to reside in London As far as I can yet see e, and then when, by your assistance, I knohat ground I stand, to ey and try to push on the Zoology I assure you I grieve to find howfor soy I suspect much assistance and communication will be necessary in this quarter, for instance, in fossil bones, of which none excepting the fragatherium have been looked at, and I clearly see that without my presence they never would be
”I only wish I had known the Botanists cared so e in a subsequent letter shows that his plants also gave him some anxiety ”I met Mr Brown a few days after you had called on him; he asked me in rather an ominous manner what I meant to do with my plants
In the course of conversation Mr Broderip, as present, re's expedition'
He answered, 'Indeed, I have so's undescribed plants to iven, if I had been asked, bythe plants to the British Museuists so little; the proportional number of specimens in the two branches should have had a very different appearance I aists, not because they are overworked, but for theirto the Zoological Society, where the speakers were snarling at each other in a entlee there will not be any danger of falling into any such contemptible quarrels, whilst in London I do not see how it is to be avoided Of the Naturalists, F Hope is out of London; Westwood I have not seen, so about
I have seen Mr Yarrell twice, but he is so evidently oppressed with business that it is too selfish to plague him with my concerns He has asked me to dine with the Linnean on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I dine with the Geological, so that I shall see all the great men Mr Bell, I hear, is sofor speciotten to inally in the army, and served at the battles of Salaave himself up to science He acted as assistant secretary to the Geological Society froave me a most cordial reception, and ho conversation If I was not y than the other branches of Natural History, I aht to fix ood-natured than the heart-and-soul ht ould be best to do
At first he was all for London versus Cae, but at last I made him confess that, for some time at least, the latter would be for me much the best There is not another soul whoh and criticise some of those papers which I have left with you Mr Lyell owned that, second to London, there was no place in England so good for a Naturalist as Ca solady ever described her first ball with more particularity”
A few days later he writes more cheerfully: ”I became acquainted with Mr Bell (T Bell, FRS, fore, London, and some time secretary to the Royal Society He afterwards described the reptiles for the zoology of the voyage of the ”Beagle”) who to ood deal of interest aboutto work at thelad to look over the South As flourish ith me”
About his plants he writes with characteristic openness as to his own ignorance: ”You have st the botanists, but I felt very foolish when Mr Don remarked on the beautiful appearance of so name, and asked me about its habitation
So about a Carex from I do not knohere I was at last forced to plead most entire innocence, and that I knew no more about the plants which I had collected than the ical Collection he was soon able to write: ”I [have] disposed of theall the fossil bones to the College of Surgeons, casts of them will be distributed, and descriptions published They are very curious and valuable; one head belonged to so animal, but of the size of a Hippopotamus! Another to an ant-eater of the size of a horse!”
It is worth noting that at this time the only extinct mammalia from South America, which had been described, were Mastodon (three species) and Megatherium The remains of the other extinct Edentata from Sir Woodbine Parish's collection had not been described My father's specimens included (besides the above-mentioned Toxodon and Scelidotheriuantic animal allied to the ant-eater, and Macrauchenia His discovery of these remains is a matter of interest in itself, but it has a special importance as a point in his own life, since it was the vivid i them with his own hands (I have often heard him speak of the despair hich he had to break off the projecting extre for hi-points of his speculation on the origin of species This is shown in the following extract from his Pocket Book for this year (1837): ”In July opened first note-book on Transreatly struck from about the month of previous March on character of South Ao These facts (especially latter), origin of all my views”]
1836-1837