HOME LIFE 417 



in the open moors and bare wastes, forming outlying - parts 

 of the New Forest, ample space on which to try the experi- 

 ment, and at all events to extend the forest character of the 

 scenery. 



My failure to obtain the post at Epping Forest was certainly 

 a disappointment to me, but I am inclined to think now that 

 even that was really for the best, since it left me free to do 

 literary work which I should certainly not have done if I had 

 had permanent employment so engrossing and interesting as 

 that at Epping. In that case I should not have gone to lecture 

 in America, and should not have written " Darwinism," per- 

 haps none of my later books, and very few of the articles 

 contained in my " Studies." This body of literary and popu- 

 lar scientific work is, perhaps, what I was best fitted to per- 

 form, and if so, neither I nor my readers have any reason to 

 regret my failure to obtain the post of superintendent and 

 guardian of Epping Forest. 



Among the eminent men of science with whom I became 

 more or less intimate during the period of my residence in 

 London, I give the first place to Sir Charles Lyell, not only 

 on account of his great abilities and his position as one 

 of the brightest ornaments of the nineteenth century, but 

 because I saw more of him than of any other man at all 

 approaching him as a thinker and leader in the world of 

 science, while my correspondence with him was more varied 

 in the subjects touched upon, and in some respects of more 

 general interest, than my more extensive correspondence with 

 Darwin. My friend, Sir Leonard Lyell, has kindly lent me 

 a volume containing the letters from his scientific corre- 

 spondence which have been preserved, and I am therefore 

 able to see what subjects I wrote about, and to give such 

 portions of the letters as seem to be of general interest. 



Early in 1864 Sir Charles was preparing his presidential 

 address for the meeting of the British Association at Bath, 

 and wishing to introduce a paragraph as to the division of 

 the Malay Archipelago into two regions, and the relation of 

 this division to the races of man, and also as to the probable 



