LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN. 413 



had passed through life with few evils, and yet you have had an unusual 

 amount of suffering. As a turnkey remarked in one of Dickens' nov- 

 els, 'Life is a rum thing.' As for myself, I have been better than 

 usual until about a fortnight ago, when I had a cough, and this pulled 

 me down and made me miserable to a strange degree ; but my dear old 

 wife insisted on my taking quinine, and, though I have very little 

 faith in medicine, this, I think, has done me much good. Well, we 

 are both so old that we must expect some troubles : I shall be seventy- 

 three on Feb. 12th. I have been glad to hear about the pine-leaves, 

 and you are the first man who has confirmed my account that they are 

 drawn in by the base, with a very few exceptions. With respect to 

 your Wandsworth case, I think that if I had heard of it before pub- 

 lishing, I would have said nothing about the ledges; for the Grisedale 

 case, mentioned in my book and observed whilst I was correcting the 

 proof-sheets, made me feel rather doubtful. Yet the Corniche case 

 shows that worms at least aid in making the ledges. Nevertheless, I 

 wish I had said nothing about the confounded ledges. The success 

 of this worm book has been almost laughable. I have, however, been 

 plagued with an endless stream of letters on the subject; most of them 

 very foolish and enthusiastic, but some containing good facts, which I 

 have used in correcting yesterday the 'sixth Thousand.' 



Your friend George's work about the viscous state of the earth 

 and tides and the moon has lately been attracting much attention, and 

 all the great judges think highly of the work. He intends to try for 

 the Plumian Professorship of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy 

 at Cambridge, which is a good and honourable post of about 800 a 

 year. I think that he will get it when Challis is dead, and he is very 

 near his end. He has all the great men Sir W. Thomson, Adams, 

 Stokes, etc. on his side. He has lately been chief examiner for the 

 Mathematical Tripos, which was tremendous work; and the day before 

 yesterday he started for Southampton for a five- weeks' tour to Jamaica 

 for complete rest, to see the Blue Mountains, and escape the rigour 

 of the early spring. I believe that George will some day be a great 

 scientific swell. The War Office has just offered Leonard a post in 

 the Government Survey at Southampton, and very civilly told him to 

 go down and inspect the place, and accept or not as he liked. So he 

 went down, but has decided that it would not be worth his while to 

 accept, as it would entail his giving up his expedition (on which he 

 had been ordered) to Queensland, in Australia, to observe the Transit 

 of Venus. Dear old William at Southampton has not been very well, 

 but is now better. He has had too much work a willing horse is 

 always overworked and all the arrangements for receiving the British 

 Association there this summer have been thrown on his shoulders. 



