To Asa Gray 29 October [1864]1
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
Oct 29th
My dear Gray
Thanks for your interesting little note of Oct. 3d.— you allude to a previous one which I never received, & am sorry for.—2 I have little or nothing to say & it is no wonder, as I live so uniform a life.— It is a horrid shame, busy & overworked as you are, but I write chiefly to ask you to get from any ornithologist or Oologist answers to enclosed questions,3 as far as may be possible.— I know that there is some good man at Cambridge or Boston, whose name I have at present forgotten.—4
Do read in last Nat. Hist. Review Huxley on Kölliker & Flourens;5 you, yourself could not have done it better.— I had a letter a little time ago from a good believer in change of species, viz B. Walsh of Illinois.—6 There are good philosophical remarks in his papers, & for some odd cause, philosophy is rarely found in entomological works7
I am able now to work on my good days for about 2 hours.— I think Phosphate of iron, which I hear is often used with you, has done me good.8 Lady Lyell9 was giving me a wonderful account of the benefit a dyspeptic lady had received from a Philadelphia medicine, which is imported into England & is called “Syrup of Phosphates”.10 Did you ever hear of it? I am tempted to try it, if I knew of what it was composed.—
I am plodding on with little success on “Laws of Variation”;11 & have succeeded only in making a disjointed skeleton on which to hang a multitude of queer facts. But I have not been able to resist doing a little more at your God-child my Climbing paper12 or rather in size little Book, which by Jove I will have copied out, else I shall never stop. This has been new sort of work for me & I have been pleased to find what a capital guide for observation, a full conviction of the change of species is.—
We always like to hear your opinion on public news; my wife in indignation has changed the Times for the Daily News,13 which I find rather dull, but it does not much concern me, for I read but little & live on endless foolish novels which are read aloud to me by my dear womenkind.
Farewell my good friend, do not write as long as you are a slave to your work | Farewell.— C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Autobiography: The autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. With original omissions restored. Edited with appendix and notes by Nora Barlow. London: Collins. 1958.
Calendar: A calendar of the correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821–1882. With supplement. 2d edition. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1994.
‘Climbing plants’: On the movements and habits of climbing plants. By Charles Darwin. [Read 2 February 1865.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 9 (1867): 1–118.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Newspaper press directory: The newspaper press directory and advertiser’s guide. The newspaper press directory … A directory of the class papers and periodicals. London: C. Michell. 1856–1900.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
Sends question [missing] for an ornithologist.
Is plodding on at Variation.
Has added to Climbing plants.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4647
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Asa Gray
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Gray Herbarium of Harvard University (88)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4647,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4647.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 12