224 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [1S65. 



seems to me perfectly natural, for one knows that for years 

 previously that one's father's death is drawing slowly nearer 

 and nearer, while the death of one's child is a sudden and 

 dreadful wrench. What a wonderful deal you read ; it is a 

 horrid evil for me that I can read hardly anything, for it 

 makes my head almost immediately begin to sing violently. 

 My good womenkind read to me a great deal, but I dare not 

 ask for much science, and am not sure that I could stand it. 

 I enjoyed Tylor * extremely, and the first part ofLecky;f 

 but I think the latter is often vague, and gives a false appear- 

 ance of throwing light on his subject by such phrases as 

 " spirit of the age," " spread of civilization," &c. I confine 

 my reading to a quarter or half hour per day in skimming 

 through the back volumes of the Annals and Magazines of 

 Natural History, and find much that interests me. I miss 

 my climbing plants very much, as I could observe them when 

 very poorly. 



I did not enjoy the ' Mill on the Floss * so much as you, 

 but from what you say we will read it again. Do you know 

 ' Silas Marner ' ? it is a charming little story ; if you run 

 short, and like to have it, we could send it by post. . . . We 

 have almost finished the first volume of Palgrave,| and I like 

 it much ; but did you ever see a book so badly arranged ? 

 The frequency of the allusions to what will be told in the 

 future are quite laughable. ... By the way, I was very 

 much pleased with the foot-note # about Wallace in Lubbock's 

 last chapter. I had not heard that Huxley had backed up 



written to a friend who had lost his child : " How well I remember your 

 feeling, when we lost Annie. It was my greatest comfort that I had never 

 spoken a harsh word to her. Your grief has made me shed a few tears 

 over our poor darling ; but believe me that these tears have lost that un- 

 utterable bitterness of former days." 



* ' Researches into the Early History of Mankind,' by E. B. Tylor. 1865. 

 f ' The Rise of Rationalism in Europe,' by W. E. H. Lecky. 1865. 



X William Gifford Palgrave's 'Travels in Arabia,' published in 1865. 



# The passage which seems to be referred to occurs in the text (p. 479) 

 of ' Prehistoric Times.' It expresses admiration of Mr. Wallace's paper in 



