His dinner with the Carlyles. "He is the best worth listening to of any man" – but CD cannot get up much admiration for Mrs C, partly because of her Scots accent, which makes her difficult to understand.

Has been with the Lyells doing geology.

Is reading a biography of Sir W. Scott [J. G. Lockhart, Memoirs of the life of Sir Walter Scott (1837–8)]; also Mungo Park’s book [Travels (1799)].

Has hired a cook at fourteen guineas a year with tea and sugar.

Comments on recent visit to Maer. Explains that his notion of happiness as quietness and solitude derives from Beagle experience. Hopes Emma will humanise him. Comments on marriage planned for Tuesday.

Describes recent visit by Lyell and his wife. Talked geology for half an hour "with poor Mrs Lyell sitting by". "I want practice in ill-treating the female sex."

He has the wedding ring. Agrees to coming straight home after the wedding, if that is what she prefers.

Questions on breeding of plants: variation in established versus new varieties; predominance of wild species and old varieties when crossed with newer forms; predominance of males versus females; correlations between ease of hybridisation and tendency to vary and undergo cultivation; reversion; correlations between hybridisation and geographic distribution.

In WH’s Amaryllidaceae [1837], does he intend to say crossing is inimical to fertility?

[Sent via J. S. Henslow; note to amanuensis Syms Covington.]

CD is led to believe there are no true permanently inbreeding, sexually reproducing beings. Thanks for replies to breeding questions.

Asks for clarification of Hippeastrum crosses: is selfing or crossing with individual of same species intended and was increased fertility due to constitution of foreign parent or due to the pollen coming from another plant? Has WH known any hybrid or mongrel to revert or to vary in a manner unlikely to be effect of soil?

Sends Journal of researches.

Describes his routine for a typical day – writing Coral reefs, studying German.

FitzRoy’s "Deluge Chapter" [Narrative 2, ch. 28] will amuse her.

His opinion of Carlyle’s Critical and miscellaneous essays [1839].