To John Maurice Herbert   [3 September? 1846]¹

My dear Herbert.

I was very glad to see your handwriting & hear a bit of news about you.— Though you cannot come here this autumn, I do hope you & M^rs Herbert will come in the winter, and we will have lots of talk of old times & lots of Beethoven.

I have little or rather nothing to say about myself; we live like clock work, & in what most people would consider the dullest possible manner I have of late been slaving extra hard, to the great discomfiture of wretched digestive organs at S. America, & thank all the fates I have done $\frac{3}{4}$ ^ths. of it,— Writing plain English grows with me more & more difficult & never attainable.— As for your pretending that you will read anything so dull as my pure geological descriptions lay not such a flattering unction on my soul,² for it is incredible— I have long discovered that geologists never read each others works, & that the only object in writing a Book is a proof of earnestness & that you do not form your opinions without undergoing labour of some kind. Geology is at present very oral, & what I here say is to a great extent quite true. But I am giving you a discussion as long as a Chap^r. in the odious Book itself.

I have lately been to Shrewsbury³ & found my Father surprisingly well & cheerful.

With our kindest united regards to M^rs Herbert, believe me, my dear old friend. | Ever yours. | C. Darwin.