From Arthur Nicols 10 November 1875
11. Church Row | N. W | Hampstead
Nov 10th. 1875
My dear Sir.
I am infinitely obliged to you for finding my poor MS.1 It really was not worth troubling you for a moment: since I, at 35 years of age, ought to have ample time to repeat everything. The tone of your letter distresses me beyond measure, and since this is probably the last letter which will pass between us (for I will not add one grain to your labours) I will speak my whole mind. I am only one of many thousands of men who have taken from you the line of investigation which should lead to the true understanding of this complex life of man and the animals & plants from which he must have sprung.
You, in what you term “old age” have given no doubt the true solution of the case of the rats with the leaden pipe.2 They heard the trickling water (as you say) no doubt, and bored into the lead until they reached it. But this testifies to their intelligence and experimental knowledge, I venture to believe.
This solution of the circumstance is due to you, and I can see no other— I have the perforated pipe here, and I shall deposit it in one of the museums of the country. Perhaps the B.M. would not accept it.
It may interest you to know that I am trying in my small way to bring the past of our earth within the ken of the populace by a series of articles on the Tertiary vertebrata in comparison with living (and perhaps representative) forms—for “Frazer” or “Blackwood”.3
Let me subscribe myself—perhaps for the last time— yours faithfully & affectionately, | R. Arthur Nicols.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Nicols, Arthur. 1877. The puzzle of life and how it has been put together: a short history of vegetable and animal life upon the earth from the earliest times: including an account of pre-historic man, his weapons, tools, and works. London: Longmans, Green & Co.
Summary
Apologises for troubling CD to look for his lost MS.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10255
- From
- Robert Arthur (Arthur) Nicols
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Hampstead
- Source of text
- DAR 172: 63
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10255,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10255.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23