a 
Reem er 
eT. 52.) TO CHARLES DARWIN. 503 
. April 11. 
You see that, at length, the thing is nearly done, 
and, to use the expression here, rebeldom is “ gone 
up.” 
You have long seen, I suppose, that I was right in 
saying there was but one possible end to the war ; also 
that the continuance for a time or abolition of slay- 
ery depended simply on the rebels, — that if they obsti- 
nately and persistently resisted, slavery was thereby 
doomed. 
It has been a long, weary, and trying work. But 
the country has had the needed patience and nerve, 
and the thing is done, once for all, at great cost, but 
to immense and enduring advantage. 
You are the only Britisher I ever write to on this 
subject, and, in fact, for whose opinions about our 
country I care at all. 
So I hasten to rejoice with you over the beginning 
of the end. 
April 20. 
You asked me to tell you, when I had read it, what 
I thought of Sir Charles Lyell’s book.! I have only 
to-day finished the perusal of the copy he kindly sent 
me, that is, all but half of the matter on glacial 
riod, which I reserve till I can read it more attentively. 
Throughout it is a very interesting and to me a very 
satisfactory book. It is three books: 1. A capital 
résumé and examination of what we knew about the 
evidence of antiquity of man; no evidence we had not 
read of before, but very clearly presented, of course. 
2. A treatise on the glacial period. Out of this I 
have much to learn, and must read it all again care- 
fully ; of a part I have not yet cut the leaves. 
1 The Antiquity of Man. 
