1876-1880] Sir William Thomson 233 



agree with the Times that now he had better accept fate, I 

 think he should cry aloud to the end, he may convert 

 someone. 



Charles Darwin to his son George. 



MY DEAR OLD GEORGE, DOWN, Oct. mh [1878]. 



I have been quite delighted with your letter and 

 read it all with eagerness. You were very good to write 

 it. All of us are delighted, for considering what a man 

 Sir WiQiam Thomson is, it is most grand that you should 

 have staggered him so quickly, and that he should speak 

 of your " discovery &c." and about the moon's period. I 

 also chuckle greatly about the internal heat. How this 

 will please the geologists and evolutionists. That does 

 sound awkward about the heat being bottled up in the 

 middle of the earth. What a lot of swells you have been 

 meeting and it must have been very interesting. 



Hurrah for the bowels of the earth and their viscosity 

 and for the moon and for the Heavenly bodies and for my 

 son George (F.R.S. very soon). 



Yours affectionately, 



C. DARWIN. 



Emma Darwin to Tier daughter-in-law Sara. 



DOWN, Thursday [1878]. 

 MY DEAR SARA, 



I did indeed feel for you and thought of you very 

 often. Theodora 1 is such a combination of gaiety, life, 

 and unselfishness and thoughtfulness, that she leaves a 

 terribly large vacancy behind her. I have sometimes 

 thought that there is a sort of reaction, something like 

 relief, when one has no longer to look forward to a dreaded 

 parting. . . . 



1 Theodora Sedgwick, Sara Darwin's sister, was on her way home 

 to America 



