JST. 52.] TO CHARLES DARWIN. 503 



April 11. 



You see that, at length, the thing is nearly done, 

 and, to use the expression here, rebeldona is "gone 

 up." 



You have long seen, I suppose, that I was right in 

 saying there was but one possible end to the war ; also 

 that the continuance for a time or abolition of slav- 

 ery depended simply on the rebels, - - that if they obsti- 

 nately and persistently resisted, slavery was thereby 

 doomed. 



It has been a long, weary, and trying work. But 

 the country has had the needed patience and nerve, 

 and the thing is done, once for all, at great cost, but 

 to immense and enduring advantage. 



You are the only Britisher I ever write to on this 

 subject, and, in fact, for whose opinions about our 

 country I care at all. 



So I hasten to rejoice with you over the beginning 

 of the end. 



April 20. 



You asked me to tell you, when I had read it, what 

 I thought of Sir Charles Lyell's book. 1 I have only 

 to-day finished the perusal of the copy he kindly sent 

 me, that is, all but half of the matter on glacial pe- 

 riod, which I reserve till I can read it more attentively. 

 Throughout it is a very interesting and to me a very 

 satisfactory book. It is three books : 1. A capital 

 resume and examination of what we knew about the 

 evidence of antiquity of man ; no evidence we had not 

 read of before, but very clearly presented, of course. 



2. A treatise on the glacial period. Out of this I 

 have much to learn, and must read it all again care- 

 fully; of a part I have not yet cut the leaves. 



1 The Antiquity of Man. 



