1838.] CAMBRIDGE. 259 



bury visit. I fear the Geology will take me a great deal of 

 time ; I was looking over one set of notes, and the quantity I 

 found I had to read, for that one place was frightful. If I 

 live till I am eighty years old I shall not cease to marvel at 

 finding myself an author ; in the summer before I started, if 

 any one had told me that I should have been an angel by this 

 time, I should have thought it an equal impossibility. This 

 marvellous transformation is all owing to you. 



I am sorry to find that a good many errata are left in the 

 part of my volume, which is printed. During my absence 

 Mr. Colburn employed some goose to revise, and he has mul- 

 tiplied, instead of diminishing my oversights ; but for all 

 that, the smooth paper and clear type has a charming appear- 

 ance, and I sat the other evening gazing in silent admiration 

 at the first page of my own volume, when I received it from 

 the printers ! 



Good-bye, my dear Henslow, 



C. Darwin. 



1838. 



[From the beginning of this year to nearly the end of June, 

 he was busily employed on the zoological and geological re- 

 sults of his voyage. This spell of work was interrupted only 

 by a visit of three days to Cambridge, in May; and even this 

 short holiday was taken in consequence of failing health, as 

 we may assume from the entry in his diary : " May ist, un- 

 well," and from a letter to his sister (May 16, 1838), when he 

 wrote : — 



" My trip of three days to Cambridge has done me such 

 wonderful good, and filled my limbs with such elasticity, that 

 I must get a little work out of my body before another holi- 

 day." This holiday seems to have been thoroughly enjoyed ; 

 he wrote to his sister : — 



''Now for Cambridge: I stayed at Henslow's house and 

 enjoyed my visit extremely. My friends gave me a most 

 cordial welcome. Indeed, I was quite a lion there, Mrs. 

 Henslow unfortunately was obliged to go on Friday for a 



