Oh. XL] 1858—1859. 201 



C. D. to J. D. Booker. Down, May 11th [1859]. 



My dear Hooker, — Thank you for telling mo about 

 obscurity of style. But on my life no nigger with lash over 

 him could have worked harder at clearness than I have done. 

 But the very difficulty to me, of itself leads to the probability 

 that I fail. Yet one lady who has read all my MS. has found 

 only two or three obscure sentences ; but Mrs. Hooker having 

 so found it, makes me tremble. I will do my best in proofs. 

 You are a good man to take the trouble to write about it. 



With respect to our mutual muddle,* I never for a moment 

 thought we could not make our ideas clear to each other by 

 talk, or if either of us had time to write in extenso. 



I imagine from some expressions (but if you ask me what, 

 I could not answer) that you look at variability as some 

 necessary contingency with organisms, and further that there 

 is some necessary tendency in the variability to go on diverging 

 in character or degree. If you do, I do not agree. " Re- 

 version " again (a form of inheritance), I look at as in no way 

 directly connected with Variation, though of course inheritance 

 is of fundamental importance to us, for if a variation be not 

 inherited, it is of no signification to us. It was on such points 

 as these I fancied that we perhaps started differently. 



I fear that my book will not deserve at all the pleasant 

 things you say about it, and Good Lord, how I do long to have 

 done with it ! 



Since the above was written, I have received and have been 

 much interested by A. Gray. I am delighted at his note about 

 my and Wallace's paper. He will go round, for it is futile to 

 give up very many species, and stop at an arbitrary line at 

 others. It is what my father called Unitarianism, " a feather- 

 bed to catch a falling Christian." . . . 



C. D. to J. Murray. Down, June 14th [1859]. 



My dear Sir, — The diagram will do very well, and I will 

 send it shortly to Mr. West to have a few trifling corrections 

 made. 



I get on very slowly with proofs. I remember writing to 

 you that I thought there would be not much correction. I 



* " When I go over the chapter I will see what I can do, but I hardly 

 know how I am obscure, and I think we are somehow in a mutual 

 muddle with respect to each other, from starting from some fundamentally 

 different notions."— Letter of May 6th, 1859. 



