DARWIN'S HEALTH AND WORK 257 



1859. ' I have been so poorly, the last three days, that 

 I sometimes doubt whether I shall ever get my little 

 volume done, though so nearly completed . . .' 1 



1859. ' . . . I can truly say I am never idle ; indeed, 

 I work too hard for my much weakened health ; yet I can 

 do only three hours of work daily, and I cannot at all see 

 when I shall have finished.' 2 



1864. ' I honour your wisdom at giving up at present 

 Society for Science. But, on the other hand, I feel it in 

 myself possible to get to care too much for Natural Science 

 and too little for other things.' 3 



1865. ' What a wonderful deal you read ; it is a horrid 

 evil for me that I can read hardly anything, for it makes 

 my head almost immediately begin to sing violently. My 

 good womenkind read to me a great deal, but I dare not ask 

 for much science, and am not sure that I could stand it.' * 



1868. ' It is really a great evil that from habit I have 

 pleasure in hardly anything except Natural History, for 

 nothing else makes me forget my ever-recurrent uncomfort- 

 able sensations.' 5 



1868. The concluding sentences of the fol- 

 lowing passage are quoted on pages 64 and 65, 

 but it is of interest to print them again together 

 with the words that led up to them. The passage 

 first graphically describes the changes in Darwin's 

 mind, and then clearly explains and interprets 

 what has been so often and so injuriously mis- 

 understood. 6 



' I am glad you were at the ' Messiah ', it is the one 

 thing that I should like to hear again, but I dare say I 



1 To J. D. Hooker : March b.Life and Letters, ii. 149. 



2 To Asa Gray, Apr. 4. Life and Letters, ii. 155. 



8 To T. H. Huxley, April 11. More Letters, i. 247. 



4 To J. D. Hooker, Sept. 27. Life and Letters, iii. 40. 



5 To J. D. Hooker, Feb. 3. Life and Letters, iii. 75. 



6 See especially pp. 79-83. 



S 



