5IO THE WRITING OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [1859. 



C. Darwin to Asa Gray. 



April 4ih [1859]. 



.... You ask to see my sheets as printed off ; I assure 

 you that it will be the highest satisfaction to me to do so : I 

 look at the request as a high compliment. I shall not, you 

 may depend, forget a request which I look at as a favour. 

 But (and it is a heavy " but " to me) it will be long before I 

 go to press ; I can truly say I am never idle ; indeed, I work 

 too hard for my much weakened health ; yet I can do only 

 three hours of work daily, and I cannot at all see when I shall 

 have finished : I have done eleven long chapters, but I have 

 got some other very difficult ones : as palaeontology, classifi- 

 cations, and embryology, &c., and I have to correct and add 

 largely to all those done. I find, alas ! each chapter takes me 

 on an average three months, so slow I am. There is no end 

 to the necessary digressions. I have just finished a chapter 

 on Instinct, and here I found grappling with such a subject as 

 bees' cells, and comparing all my notes made during twenty 

 years, took up a despairing length of time. 



But I am running on about myself in a most egotistical 

 style. Yet I must just say how useful I have again and again 

 found your letters, which I have lately been looking over and 

 quoting ! but you need not fear that I shall quote anything 

 you would dislike, for I try to be very cautious on this 

 head. I most heartily hope you may succeed in getting your 

 " incubus " of old work off your hands, and be in some degree 

 a free man. . . . 



Again let me say that I do indeed feel grateful to you . . . 



C. Darwin to J. Murray. 



Down, April sth [1859]. 



My dear Sir, — I send by this post, the Title (with some 

 remarks on a separate page), and the first three chapters. 

 If you have patience to read all Chapter I., I honestly think 

 you will have a fair notion of the interest of the whole book. 



