Dear Old Darwin

Your letter¹ rejoices me beyond any I have had for a 12 month, because you appear so well—because your climbing paper is finished,² & because you are actually about to begin preparing the book of books.³

I am quite ashamed of not having read Scotts paper,⁴ I took it up, found it obscure & have kept it beside me ever since waiting leisure. I have spoken to Oliver about noticing it & he certainly will do so,⁵ availing himself thankfully of your promised marks & hints. I can quite appreciate the value & extraordinary interest of the facts you indicate—⁶ May it not be assumed that a violent change of color—yellow to red—signifies a great change in requirement for fecundation—a very different Insect to wit— Hence may not a variation in pollen or stigma in the case of the Cowslip require a different insect to ensure fertilization, & the variation of corolla to red be the one that attracts the right insect.

By all means quote Spruce’s observation— I saw him the other day for first time, he is a most able man—⁷ He tells me of Indians who hardly know the use of fire. I think Bates alludes to them.⁸

The Nepenthes is I think N. phyllamphora but I will look before writing again, & let you know.⁹

I will agitate the subject of a translation of Gærtner, for Ray Society— if you will write & propose it I will back it.—¹⁰ I much wish it were translated.

I have just finished Lyells address,¹¹ the commencement is good, the middle dull, the latter part very interesting— on the whole it appears to me a feeble affair, & I seem to see in it (with great sorrow) that Lyell is getting old. He should have alluded to Franklands theory,¹² whether to discuss or no. Tyndall¹³ came out last Sunday, he altogether despises Murchison’s discussion of Ramsays theory of Ice scooping,¹⁴ is writing himself on the physical structure of the Alps, I understand.¹⁵

I enclose an interesting note from A Gray for you—¹⁶ when done with, if you do not object I should like to send it to D^r. Masters, who is writing a book on Teratology.¹⁷

Do you take Bentham’s address as swallowing progressive developement whole? I do.— life, he says, has been one & continuous, without renewal & without break.¹⁸ He has to thank you for the caution about Naudin,¹⁹ which he introduced on my assuring him how strongly you felt the necessity of it.

Müller of Geneva²⁰ is here (DeCandolles²¹ assistant)   he says that Thurys later experiments are not so favorable as his first. Muller makes one good objection to Thurys theory²²—viz that it makes the production of sex a function of the female alone which is an a-priori extreme improbability.

I go to Bath tomorrow for 2 or 3 days,²³ I am glad to do so though I go with a very heavy heart— on principle I think we should not keep anniversarys of great sorrows, but as the day draws nearer I feel all the misery of last year crawling over me & my lost child’s face & voice accompany me everywhere by day & by night:²⁴ So that I now dread an attack of what were more the horrors of delirium tremens than the chastened sorrows of a sensible man. I am sure however that there is no fear of that now; time, as you told me it would, has done its inevitable work.

What queer mortals we are! poor Grove’s²⁵ far more dreadful blow, reconciles me to my loss, in a real though irrational manner. I have felt for him exceedingly— It is too bad of me to write on such selfish subjects to you, & I am sure Mrs Darwin²⁶ must be angry with me for doing so—but your affection for your children has been a great example to me, & there is no other living soul with whom I can talk of the subject.— it would make my wife²⁷ ill if I went on so to her. She is wonderfully different from me, the loss simply made her very ill, almost dangerously so— I am of tougher coarser material, & like Rawdon Crawley,²⁸ have greater capacity for feelings, which when once aroused, run riot, without deranging