To S. P. Woodward   18 July 1856

Down. | Farnborough Kent.1

July 18th (1856.)

My dear Sir

Very many thanks for your kindness in writing to me at such length,2 and I am glad to say for your sake that I do not see that I shall have to beg any further favours.

What a range & what a variability in the Cyrena! Your list of the ranges of the Land & F. W. Shells, certainly is most striking & curious; & especially as the Antiquity of four of them is so clearly shewn.3

I have got Harveys sea-side book, & liked it; but I was not particularly struck with it but I will reread the 1st. & last chapter.

I am growing as bad as the worst4 about species & hardly have a vestige of belief in the permanence of species left in me, & this5 confession will make you think very lightly of me; but I cannot help it, such has become my honest conviction though the difficulties & arguments against such heresy are certainly most weighty.

Yours very sincerely | Ch Darwin.

Copy

1
After October 1855, CD’s postal address was usually given as Bromley, but Farnborough was occasionally used.
2
Letters from S. P. Woodward, 15 July 1856 and [15 July 1856].
4
In the copy of this letter, Francis Darwin substituted ‘worst’ for the copyist’s ‘rest’.
5
Francis Darwin here substituted ‘this’ for the copyist’s ‘the’.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1931,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1931