48 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [1866. 



allegory* began, "for a minute or two we were all mystified, 

 and then came such bursts of applause from the audience. 

 It was thoroughly enjoyed amid roars of laughter and noise, 

 making a most brilliant conclusion." 



I am rejoiced that you will publish your lecture, and felt sure 

 that sooner or later it would come to this, indeed it would 

 have been a sin if you had not done so. I am especially 

 rejoiced as you give the arguments for occasional transport 

 with such perfect fairness ; these will now receive a fair share 

 of attention, as coming from you, a professed botanist. Thanks 

 also for Grove's address ; as a whole it strikes me as very 

 good and original, but I was disappointed in the part about 

 Species ; it dealt in such generalities that it would apply to 

 any view or no view in particular 



And now farewell. I do most heartily rejoice at your 

 success, and for Grove's sake at the brilliant success of the 



whole meeting. 



Yours affectionately, 



CHARLES DARWIN. 



[The next letter is of interest, as giving the beginning of 

 the connection which arose between my father and Profes- 

 sor Victor Carus. The translation referred to is the third 

 German edition, made from the fourth English one. From 

 this time forward Professor Carus continued to translate 

 my father's books into German. The conscientious care with 

 which this work was done was of material service, and I well 

 remember the admiration (mingled with a tinge of vexation 

 at his own shortcomings) with which my father used to 

 receive the lists of oversights, &c., which Professor Carus dis- 



* Sir Joseph Hooker allegorised each month. The anger of the 



the Oxford meeting of the British priests and medicine men at a 



Association as the gathering of a certain heresy, according to which 



tribe of savages who believed that the new moon is but the offspring 



the new moon was created afresh of the old one, is excellently given. 



