LITERARY WORK IN DEVONSHIRE. 283 



"one, and the Pleistocene one by this time into the 

 " recent : but creation having occurred after the 

 "Pleistocene era, fossils representing those (and the 

 " early) links of the cycle have been inserted into their 

 " proper beds. 



" Now, I wish you would look over this thought, for 

 " it is what you really seem to me to lead to. I am not 

 " frightened if it be true. Known unto God are all His 

 * works, and that is enough for me ; but it does trouble 

 " me, as a disliker of the Vestiges, to find you advocating 

 " a cyclic theory of species, which, if it is to bear any 

 " analogy to the cycle of individual growth, must surely 

 " consist in physical transformation. 



" If you will set me right on this matter, you will do 

 " me a moral good, as well as justice to yourself. 



" Pray take all I say in good part, as the speech of 

 "one earnest man to another. All I want is God's 

 " truth, and if I can get that I will welcome it, however 

 " much it upsets my pride and my theories. And I am 

 "sure, from the tone of your book, you want nothing 

 " else either. 



" I promised to review your book. I pay you a high 

 "compliment when I say that I shall not do so, and 

 " solely for this reason — that I am not going to mount 

 "the reviewer's chair, and pretend to pass judgment, 

 "where I am so utterly puzzled as to confess myself 

 " only a learner and an inquirer writing for light. 

 " Believe me, yours more faithfully than ever, 



" C. KlNGSLEY." 



By the time, however, that Omphalos was published, in 

 November, 1857, the change from London to Devonshire 

 had wrought its good work upon Gosse's mental health and 

 spirits. He lost his morbid depression ; he resumed his 



