1882 DEATH OF CHARLES DARWIN 



Heavy blows have fallen upon me this year in losing Darwin 

 and Balfour, the best of the old and the best of the young. I am 

 beginning to feel older than my age myself, and if Balfour had 

 lived I should have cleared out of the way as soon as possible, 

 feeling that the future of Zoological Science in this country was 

 very safe in his hands. As it is, I am afraid I may still be of 

 use for some years, and shall be unable to sing my ' Nunc 

 dimittis " with a good conscience. 



Darwin was in correspondence with him till quite near 

 the end ; having received the volume Science and Culture, 

 he wrote on January 12, 1882: 



With respect to automatism,* I wish that you could review 

 yourself in the old, and, of course, forgotten, trenchant style, 

 and then you would have [to] answer yourself with equal in- 

 cisiveness ; and thus, by Jove, you might go on ad infinitum to 

 the joy and instruction of the world. 



And again on March 27 : 



Your most kind letter has been a real cordial to me. . . . 

 Once again accept my cordial thanks, my dear old friend. I 

 wish to God there were more automata in the world like you. 



Darwin died on April 19, and a brief notice being re- 

 quired for the forthcoming number of Nature on the 27th, 

 Huxley made shift to write a brief article, which is printed 

 in the Collected Essays, ii. p. 244. But as neither he nor Sir 

 Joseph Hooker could at the moment undertake a regular 

 obituary notice, this was entrusted to Professor Romanes, 

 to whom the following letters were written. 



4 MARYBOROUGH PLACE, April 26, 1882. 



MY DEAR ROMANES Thank you for your hearty letter. I 

 spent many hours over the few paragraphs I sent to Nature, in 

 trying to express what all who thoroughly knew and therefore 

 loved Darwin, must feel in language which should be absolutely 

 free from rhetoric or exaggeration. 



I have done my best, and the sad thing is that I cannot look 

 for those cheery notes he used to send me in old times, when I 

 had written anything that pleased him. 



* The allusion is to the 1874 address on "Animals as Automata," 

 which was reprinted in Science and Culture. 



