ch. x.J 1843-1858. 191 



just at present I wish I had my old barnacles to work at, 

 and nothing new." 



And to Hooker : 



" Everything has been going wrong with me lately : the 

 fish at the Zoolog. Soc. ate up lots of soaked seeds, and in 

 imagination they had in my mind been swallowed, fish and 

 all, by a heron, had been carried a hundred miles, been voided 

 on the banks of some other lake and germinated splendidly, 

 when lo and behold, the fish ejected vehemently, and with 

 disgust equal to my own, all the seeds from their mouth s." 



THE UNFINISHED BOOK. 



In his Autobiographical sketch (p. 41) my father wrote : 

 " Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views 

 pretty fully, and I began at once to do so on a scale three or 

 four times as extensive as that which was afterwards fol- 

 lowed in my Origin of Species ; yet it was only an abstract 

 of the materials which I had collected." The remainder of 

 the present chapter is chiefly concerned with the prepara- 

 tion of this unfinished book. 



The work was begun on May 14th, and steadily con- 

 tinued up to June 1858, when it was interrupted by the 

 arrival of Mr. Wallace's MS. During the two years which 

 we are now considering, he wrote ten chapters (that is 

 about one-half) of the projected book. 



C. D. to J. D. Hooker. May 9th [1856]. 



... I very much want advice and truthful consolation 

 if you can give it. I had a good talk with Lyell about my 

 species work, and he urges me strongly to publish some- 

 thing. I am fixed against any periodical or Journal, as I 

 positively will not expose myself to an Editor or a Council 

 allowing a publication for which they might be abused. If 

 I publish anything it must be a very thin and little volume, 

 giving a sketch of my views and difficulties ; but it is really 

 dreadfully unphilosophical to give a resume, without exact 

 references, of an unpublished work. But Lyell seemed to 

 think I might do this, at the suggestion of friends, and on 

 the ground, which I might state, that I had been at work 

 for eighteen* years, and yet could not publish for several 



* The interval of eighteen years, from 1837 when he began to collect facts, 

 would bring the date of this 'letter to 1855, not 1856, nevertheless the latter 

 seems the rnore probable date. 



