"I return your letter to [William] Sharpey." Grandest eulogium CD has received.
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The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
"I return your letter to [William] Sharpey." Grandest eulogium CD has received.
Thanks CD for his Lythrum paper [Collected papers 2: 106–31].
Tells of the birth of his 16th child. Has five grandchildren.
Has finished long paper on "Climbing plants". Prefers sending it to Linnean Society if Bentham does not think it too long.
For New Zealand flora [1864–7] CD suggests JDH count plants with irregular corollas and compare with England.
Does not quite agree about Reader.
Is Tyndall author of piece on spiritualism?
CD’s illness diagnosed as "suppressed gout".
Bentham wants "Climbing plants" for Journal of the Linnean Society, however long [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 9 (1865): 1–118]. Publication in Proceedings of the Royal Society restricts correspondence.
Reader much improved.
Tyndall did write piece on spiritualism ["Science and the spirits", Reader 4 (1864): 725–6].
"Suppressed gout" annoys him as a term cloaking ignorance.
Thanks for [E. Eudes?] Deslongchamps’ paper.
Henry Huxley born.
Leader in Reader [4 (1864): 821] is by THH. It has got him into trouble with some of his friends.
New herbarium is finished.
Congratulations on Copley Medal.
"Climbing plants" sent off.
Encourages JDH to include notes on gradation of important characters in Genera plantarum or to write a paper on the subject. Has given prominence to gradation of unimportant characters in climbing plants. Believes that it is common for the same part in an individual plant to be in different states. Same may be true of important parts – for example position of ovule may differ.
Two articles in last Natural History Review interested him; "Colonial floras" [n.s. 5 (1865): 46–63]
and "Sexuality of cryptogams" [n.s. 5 (1865): 64–79].
Fact of similarity of orders in tropics is extremely curious. Thinks it may be connected with glacial destruction.
Leo Lesquereux says he is a convert for the curious reason that CD’s books make birth of Christ and redemption by grace so clear to him!
"Not one question [for JDH] in this letter!"
Cannot come until week from Saturday.
Worked to death by Genera plantarum.
His distress that his engagement has been broken off.
Sends copies of two papers ["On the parrots of the Malayan region", Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1864): 279–97;
"On the physical geography of the Malay Archipelago", J. R. Geogr. Soc. 33 (1863): 217–34].
Comments on his Primula paper [see 4213].
Describes his situation in Calcutta.
Species of lice and the animals they infest. Different kinds of dogs, fowls, and pigeons are infested by the same species of Pediculi [see Descent 1: 219].
John Scott has arrived in Calcutta and has been given an appointment by Thomas Anderson.
Pleased at receiving CD’s letter.
HWB informs him of favourable notice of the mimetic paper [in Wiegmann’s Arch. Naturgesch. 29 (1863) pt 2: 315–19].
He is pleased with his post [Asst. Sec. of Royal Geographical Society].
Sends papers with comments. Convinced that the Aru pig is a species peculiar to New Guinea fauna, not a domestic animal that ran wild.
Admires CD’s paper ["Three forms of Lythrum", Collected papers 2: 106–31].
Hugh Falconer’s death great loss to science.
His own health has been especially bad this last week.
Is glad MTM is going to experiment on Passiflora.
Is grieved to hear that John Scott has been inaccurate but cannot think he recorded, in his paper, experiments that he never made [see 4485].
Falconer’s illness and suffering. His great ability and knowledge.
CD’s paper ["Climbing plants"] went extremely well [at Linnean Society]. M. T. Masters and Bentham commented.
MTM heard part of the abstract of CD’s paper on climbing plants, read at the Linnean Society on 2 Feb. Offers CD his opinion and information on the subject, which he has studied for many years.
Falconer’s death haunts him. Personal annihilation not so horrifying to him as sun cooling some day and human race ending.
His health has been wretched.
Masters has written his agreement with CD’s "Climbing plants".
Sends a pamphlet and photograph to CD [missing];
announces a botanical congress at Erfurt at which CD’s theory will be discussed.