4O SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [1865. 



that one's father's death is drawing slowly nearer and nearer, 

 while the death of one's child is a sudden and dreadful 

 wrench. 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. I 

 enjoyed Tylor * extremely, and the first part of Lecky ; f but 

 I think the latter is often vague, and gives a false appearance 

 of throwing light on his subject by such phrases as " spirit of 

 the age," " spread of civilization," &c. I confine my 'reading 

 to a quarter or half hour per day in skimming through the 

 back volumes of the Annals and Magazine of Natural Hist- 

 ory, and find much that interests me. I miss my climbing 

 plants very much, as I could observe them when very 

 poorly. 



I did not enjoy the 'Mill on the Floss' so much as you, 

 but from what you say we will read it again. Do you know 

 ' Silas Marner ' ? it is a charming little story ; if you run short, 

 and like to have it, we could send it by post. . . . We have 

 almost finished the first volume of Palgrave,{ and I like it 

 much ; but did you ever see a book so badly arranged ? The 

 frequency of the allusions to what will be told in the future 

 are quite laughable. ... By the way, I was very much 

 pleased with the foot-note about Wallace in Lubbock's last 

 chapter. I had not heard that Huxley had backed up Lub- 

 bock about Parliament. . . . Did you see a sneer some time 

 ago in the Times about how incomparably more interesting 



* * Researches into the Early be referred to occurs in the text 



History of Mankind,' by E. B. (p. 479) of ' Prehistoric Times.' It 



Tylor. ' 1865. expresses admiration of Mr. Wal- 



t ' The Rise of Rationalism in lace's paper in the ' Anthropological 



Europe,' by W.E.H. Lecky. 1865. Review' (May 1864), and speaks 



J William Gifford Palgrave's of the author's " characteristic un- 



' Travels in Arabia,' published in selfishness " in ascribing the theory 



1865. of Natural Selection "unreservedly 



The passage which seems to to Mr. Darwin." 



