1 859-] ENCOURAGEMENT. 1 67 



important of all on the favourable side. The last chapter, 

 which sums up, and balances in a mass, all the arguments 

 contra and pro, will, I think, be useful to you. I cannot too 

 strongly express my conviction of the general truth of my 

 doctrines, and God knows I have never shirked a difficulty. 

 I am foolishly anxious for your verdict, not that I shall be 

 disappointed if you are not converted ; for I remember the 

 long years -it took me to come round; but I shall be most 

 deeply delighted if you do come round, especially if I have a 

 fair share in the conversion, I shall then feel that my career 

 is run, and care little whether I ever am good for anything 

 again in this life. 



Thank you much for allowing me to put in the sentence 

 about your grave doubt.* So much and too much about 

 myself. 



I have read with extreme interest in the Aberdeen paper 

 about the flint tools ; you have made the whole case far 

 clearer to me ; I suppose that you did not think the evidence 

 .sufficient about the Glacial period. 



With cordial thanks for your splendid notice of my book. 

 Believe me, my dear Lyell, your affectionate disciple, 



CHARLES DARWIN. 



C. Darwin to W. D. Fox. 



Down, Sept. 23rd [1859]. 



MY DEAR Fox, I was very glad to get your letter a few 

 <lays ago. I was wishing to hear about you, but have been 

 in such an absorbed, slavish, overworked state, that I had not 

 heart without compulsion to write to any one or do anything 

 beyond my daily work. Though your account of yourself is 

 better, I cannot think it at all satisfactory, and I wish you 

 would soon go to Malvern again. My father used to believe 

 largely in an old saying that, if a man grew thinner between 



* As to the immutability of species, ' Origin,' ed. i., p. 310. 



