Discusses WED’s plans for the summer.
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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.
Discusses WED’s plans for the summer.
CD favours occurrence of reversions, although lack of experiments forces one to vague opinions. Reversions oppose only the inheritance not the occurrence of variation. Discusses relation of reversion, direct influence of conditions, and selection.
JDH’s comments on style of Origin MS leave CD confused.
CD advises on how to get Acacia to set seed.
CD is convinced that the suggestions [for the Origin?] of both Lyell and Whitwell Elwyn are impracticable.
Will send first six chapters of MS next week. Has taken such pains with it that he hopes corrections will not be heavy.
Sends first six chapters [of Origin] for the press. Asks JM to urge printer to keep well ahead of CD so as not to waste time. This is important for his health’s sake.
JDH finds style of CD’s MS obscure.
CD wary of JDH’s starting point on variability: it is not inherent, it does not lead necessarily to divergence, and it must be distinguished from inheritance.
Asa Gray has misread CD’s views on pre-glacial migrations and botched the subject.
Approves specimen sheet [of Origin]. Sorry book will be so long. Has now written half of last chapter; it is as long as his estimate of the entire chapter. Now thinks it will run to 6000 or 7000 words. Will do his utmost to improve his style. Anxious to publish soon; he knows of two men already writing on the subject, starting from his Linnean Society paper ["On the tendency of species to form varieties", Collected papers 2: 3–19]. Will send a diagram for the book.
Too ill to examine proofs of JDH’s Flora Tasmaniae [The botany of the Antarctic voyage, pt III].
His health has suddenly failed. He is leaving home for one week’s rest.
Has informed William Clowes that he will begin correcting on the 27th.
Returning from Moor Park. CD will take up proofs of JDH’s Flora Tasmaniae.
CD’s diagram [for chapter on "Divergence of character", Origin] is indispensable.
Finds he will have to make many corrections, his text is so obscure.
A week of hydropathy at Moor Park has done him a world of good.