522 THE WRITING OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [1859. 



I have read with extreme interest in the Aberdeen paper 

 about the flint tools ; you have made the whole case far 

 clearer to me ; I suppose that you did not think the evidence 

 sufficient about the Glacial period. 



With cordial thanks for your splendid notice of my book. 



Believe me, my dear Lyell, your affectionate disciple, 



Charles Darwin. 



C. Darwin to W. £>. Fox. 



Down, Sept. 23rd [1859]. 

 My dear Fox, — I was very glad to get your letter a few 

 days ago. I was wishing to hear about you, but have been 

 in such an absorbed, slavish, overworked state, that I had not 

 heart without compulsion to write to any one or do anything 

 beyond my daily work. Though your account of yourself is 

 better, I cannot think it at all satisfactory, and I wish you 

 would soon go to Malvern again. My father used to beHeve 

 largely in an old saying that, if a man grew thinner between 

 fifty and sixty years of age, his chance of long life was poor, 

 and that on the contrary it was a very good sign if he grew 

 fatter ; so that your stoutness, I look at as a very good omen. 

 My health has been as bad as it well could be all this sum- 

 mer ; and I have kept on my legs, only by going at short 

 intervals to Moor Park ; but I have been better lately, and, 

 thank Heaven, I have at last as good as done my book, 

 having only the index and two or three revises to do. It 

 will be published in the first week in November, and a copy 

 shall be sent you. Remember it is only an Abstract (but has 

 cost me above thirteen months to write ! !), and facts and 

 authorities are far from given in full. I shall be curious to 

 hear what you think of it, but I am not so silly as to expect 

 to convert you. Lyell has read about half of the volume in 

 clean sheets, and gives me very great kudos. He is wavering 

 so much about the immutability of species, that I expect he 

 will come round. Hooker has come round, and will publish 

 his belief soon. So much for my abominable volume, which 



