1877 LETTERS TO BAYNES 191 



Though he refused to undertake the article on 

 Distribution, he managed to write that on Evolution 

 (republished in Collected Essays, ii. 187). Thus on 

 July 28, 1877, he writes : 



/ ought to do "Evolution," but I mightn't and I 

 shouldn't. Don't see how it is practicable to do justice 

 to it with the tune at my disposal, though I really should 

 like to do it, and I am at my wits' end to think of any- 

 body who can be trusted with it. 



Perhaps something may turn up, and if so I will let 

 you know. 



The something in the way of more time did turn 

 up by dint of extra pressure, and the article got 

 written in the course of the autumn, as appears from 

 the following of December 29, 1877 : 



I send you the promised skeleton (with a good deal of 

 the flesh) of Evolution. It is costing me infinite labour 

 in the way of reading, but I am glad to be obliged to do 

 the work, which will be a curious and instructive chapter 

 in the history of Science. 



The lawyer-like faculty of putting aside a subject 

 when done with, which is indicated in the letter of 

 March 16, 1875, reappears in the following : 



4 MARLBOROUGH PLACE, N.W., 

 March 18, 1878. 



MY DEAR BAYNES Your printers are the worst species 

 of that diabolic genus I know of. It is at least a month 

 since I sent them a revise of " Evolution " by no means 

 finished, and from that time to this I have had nothing 

 from them. 



I shall forget all about the subject, and then at the 



