j 875.] lyell's death. 197 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, February 25 [1875]. 



My DEAR Hooker, — Your letter so full of feeling has 

 Interested me greatly. I cannot say that I felt his [Lyell's] 

 death much, for I fully expected it, and have looked for some 

 little time at his career as finished. 



I dreaded nothing so much as his surviving with impaired 

 mental powers. He was, indeed, a noble man in very many 

 ways ; perhaps in none more than in his warm sympathy with 

 the work of others. How vividly I can recall my first con- 

 versation with him, and how he astonished me by his interest 

 in what I told him. How grand also was his candour and 

 pure love of truth. Well, he is gone, and I feel as if we were 

 all soon to go. ... I am deeply rejoiced about West- 

 minster Abbey,* the possibility of which had not occurred to 

 me when I wrote before. I did think that his works were the 

 most enduring of all testimonials (as you say) to him ; but 

 then I did not like the idea of his passing away with no out- 

 ward sign of what scientific men thought of his merits. Now 

 all this is changed, and nothing can be better than West- 

 minster Abbey. Mrs. Lyell has asked me to be one of the 

 pall-bearers, but I have written to say that I dared not, as I 

 should so likely fail in the midst of the ceremony, and have 

 my head whirling off my shoulders. All this affair must have 

 cost you much fatigue and worry, and how I do wish you 

 were out of England. . . . 



[In 1 88 1 he wrote to Mrs. Fisher in reference to her article 

 on Sir Charles Lyell in the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' : — 



" For such a publication I suppose you do not want to say 

 much about his private character, otherwise his strong sense 

 of humour and love of society might have been added. Also 

 his extreme interest in the progress of the world, and in the 



* Sir Charles Lyell was buried in Westminster Abbey. 



