200 WRITING OF THE OBIGIN OF SPECIES. [Ch. XI. 



Yon must take your own time, bnt the sooner yon finish, the 

 sooner she will, and the sooner I shall get to press, which I so 

 earnestly wish. 



I presume you will wish to see Chapter IV.,* the key-stone 

 of my arch, and Chapters X. and XI., but please to inform me 

 on this head. 



My dear Sir, yours sincerely. 



On April 11th he wrote to Hooker : — 



" I write one line to say that I heard from Murray yester- 

 day, and he says he has read the first three chapters of 

 [my] MS. (and this includes a very dull one), and he abides by 

 his offer. Hence he does not want more MS., and you can 

 send my Geographical chapter when it pleases you." 



Part of the MS. seems to have been lost on its way back to 

 my father. He wrote (April 14) to Sir J. D. Hooker : — 



" I have the old MS., otherwise the loss would have killed 

 me ! The worst is now that it will cause delay in getting to 

 press, and far worst of all, I lose all advantage of your having 

 looked over my chapter, f except the third part returned. I 

 am very sorry Mrs. Hooker took the trouble of copying the 

 two pages." 



C. D. to J. D. Hoolcer. [April or May, 1859.] 



. . . Please do not say to any one that 1 thought my book on 

 species would be fairly popular, and have a fairly remunerative 

 sale (which was the height of my ambition), for if it prove a 

 dead failure, it would make me the more ridiculous. 



I enclose a criticism, a taste of the future — 

 Rev. S. Haughton's Address to the Geological Society, Bublin.% 



" This speculation of Messrs. Darwin and Wallace would 

 not be worthy of notice were it not for the weight of authority 

 of the names (i.e. Lyell's and yours), under whose auspices it 

 has been brought forward. If it means what it says, it is a 

 truism ; if it means anything more, it is contrary to fact." 



Q. E. D. 



* In the first edition Chapter iv. was on Natural Selection. 



t The following characteristic acknowledgment of the help he received 

 occurs in a letter to Hooker, of about this time : " I never did pick any 

 one's pocket, but whilst writing my present chapter I keep on feeling 

 (even when differing most from you) just as if I were stealing from you, 

 so much do I owe to your writings and conversation, so much more than 

 mere acknowledgments show." 



X Feb. 9th, 1858. 



