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CHAPTER XL 



THE WRITING OP THE * ORIGIN OP SPECIES.' 



" I havo done my best. If you had all my material I am sure you would 

 have made a splendid book." — From a letter to Lyell, June 21, 1859. 



JUNE 18, 1858, TO NOVEMBER 1859. 



C. D. to C. Lyell Down, 18th [June 1858]. 



My dear Lyell — Some year or so ago you recommended 

 mo to read a paper by Wallace in the Annals,* which had 

 interested you, and as I was writing to him, I knew this would 

 please him much, so I told him. He has to-day sent me the 

 enclosed, and asked me to forward it to you. It seems to 

 me well worth reading. Your words have come true with a j 

 vengeance — that I should bo forestalled. You said this, when 

 I explained to you here very briefly my views of * Natural 

 Selection ' depending on the struggle for existence. I never 

 saw a more striking coincidence ; if Wallace had my MS. 

 sketch written out in 1842, ho could not have made a better 

 short abstract ! Even his terms now stand as heads of my 

 chapters. Please return me the MS., which he does not say 

 he wishes me to publish, but I shall, of course, at once write 

 and offer to send to any journal. So all my originality, what- 

 ever it may amount to, will be smashed, though my book, if it * 

 will ever have any value, will not be deteriorated ; as all the 

 labour consists in the application of the theory. 



I hope you will approve of Wallace's sketch, that I may tell 

 him what you say. 



My dear Lyell, yours most truly. 



0. D. to C. Lyell Down [June 25, 1858]. 



My dear Lyell — I am very sorry to trouble you, busy as 

 you are, in so merely personal an affair ; hut if you will give 

 me your deliberate opinion, you will do me as great a service 



* AnnaU and Mag. of Nat Ei»t. t 1855. 



