The Life and Letters-1 [148]
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
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