i6 



"On March 7, 1837, I took lodgings in [36] Great Marlborough Street 

 in London, and remained there for nearly two years, until I was married." 



1838 " In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic 

 enquiry, I happened to read for amusement ' Malthus on Population,' and 

 being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which every- 

 where goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals 

 and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable 

 variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. 

 The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then 

 I had at last got a theory by which to work ; but I was so anxious to avoid 

 prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest 

 sketch of it." 



1839 Married at Maer (Staffordshire) to his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, 

 b. 1808, d. 1896, daughter of Josiah Wedgwood. (Plate VI.) 



Dec. 31, "Entered 12 Upper Gower Street" [now no Gower Street, 

 London]. 



"If the character of my father's working life is to be understood, the 

 conditions of ill-health, under which he worked, must be constantly borne 

 in mind.... No one indeed, except my mother, knows the full amount of 

 suffering he endured, or the full amount of his wonderful patience. For all 

 the latter years of his life she never left him for a night ; and her days 

 were so planned that all his resting hours might be shared with her. She 

 shielded him from every avoidable annoyance, and omitted nothing that 

 might save him trouble, or prevent him becoming overtired, or that might 

 alleviate the many discomforts of his ill-health. I hesitate to speak thus 

 freely of a thing so sacred as the life-long devotion which prompted all this 

 constant and tender care. But it is, I repeat, a principal feature of his life, 

 that for nearly forty years he never knew one day of the health of ordinary 

 men, and that thus his life was one long struggle against the weariness 

 and strain of sickness. And this cannot be told without speaking of the 

 one condition which enabled him to bear the strain and fight out the struggle 

 to the end." Francis Darwin in The Life and Letters. 



Published Journal and Researches, being Vol. in. of the Narrative of 

 the Surveying Voyage of H. M.S. Advenhire and Beagle 



1842 " In June 1842 I first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very 



brief abstract of my [species] theory in pencil in 35 pages 1 ; and this was 



1 This MS, published under the title The Foundations of the Origin of Species, will be 

 presented by the Syndics of the University Press to the Delegates attending the Celebration. 



