1863.] SCIENCE IN THE COLONIES. 5 



Now for pleasanter subjects ; we were all amused at your 

 defence of stamp collecting and collecting generally. . . . But, 

 by Jove, I can hardly stomach a grown man collecting stamps. 

 Who would ever have thought of your collecting Wedgwood- 

 ware ! but that is wholly different, like engravings or pictures. 

 We are degenerate descendants of old Josiah W., for we have 

 not a bit of pretty ware in the house. 



. . . Notwithstanding the very pleasant reason you give for 

 our not enjoying a holiday, namely, that we have no vices, it 

 is a horrid bore. I have been trying for health's sake to be 

 idle, with no success. What I shall now have to do, will be to 

 erect a tablet in Down Church, " Sacred to the Memory, &c.," 

 and officially die, and then publish books, " by the late Charles 

 Darwin," for I cannot think what has come over me of late ; I 

 always suffered from the excitement of talking, but now it has 

 become ludicrous. I talked lately i^ hours (broken by tea 

 by myself) with my nephew, and I was [ill] half the night. 

 It is a fearful evil for self and family. 



Good-night Ever yours, 



C. DARWIN. 



[The following letter to Sir Julius von Haast,* is an 

 example of the sympathy which he felt with the spread and 

 growth of science in the colonies. It was a feeling not 

 expressed once only, but was frequently present in his 

 mind, and often found utterance. When we, at Cambridge, 

 had the satisfaction of receiving Sir J. von Haast into our 

 body as a Doctor of Science (July 1886), I had the oppor- 

 tunity of hearing from him of the vivid pleasure which this, 

 and other letters from my father, gave him. It was pleasant 

 to see how strong had been the impression made by my 

 father's warm-hearted sympathy an impression which seemed, 



* The late Sir Julius von Haast was, in 1862, Government Geologist 

 was a German by birth, but had long to the Province of Canterbury, 

 been resident in New Zealand. He 



