From Charles Kingsley 14 June 1865
Eversley Rectory, | Winchfield.
June 14/65
My dear Sir
I have been reading with delight & instruction your paper on Climbing plants.1
Your explanation of an old puzzle of mine—Lath. Nissolia—is a masterpiece.2 Nothing can be more conclusive. That of the filament at the petiole-end of the Bean is equally satisfactory.3
Ah that I could begin to study Nature anew, now that you have made it to me a live thing; not a dead collection of names4
But my work lies elsewhere now.5 Such work nevertheless helps mine at every turn. It is better that the division of labour shd. be complete, & that each man should do only one thing, while he looks on, as he finds time, at what others are doing, & so gets laws from other sciences wh. he can apply—as I do—to my own.
Yours ever faithfully | C Kingsley.
Footnotes
Bibliography
‘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–.
DNB: Dictionary of national biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. 63 vols. and 2 supplements (6 vols.). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1912. Dictionary of national biography 1912–90. Edited by H. W. C. Davis et al. 9 vols. London: Oxford University Press. 1927–96.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
Summary
CD’s paper on "Climbing plants" [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 9 (1867): 1–118] has made nature come alive for CK.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4861
- From
- Charles Kingsley
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Eversley
- Source of text
- DAR 169: 33
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4861,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4861.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13