My dear M^r. Darwin

The sight of your handwriting was a pleasant sight to me. It needed some such stimulus to releive me from the “deficiency of voluntary power” with which I have been contending of late. I take the phrase from the Life of Erasmus Darwin; but it suits me exactly.¹ Ever since the late autumn I have been thinking from week to week and day by day that I would write to you, but the good intentions only served for paving of a certain road that no one is particularly desirous to travel. A rather acute phase of a chronic ailment which has tormented me for the last twenty years or more has been the obstacle to the performance of social duties. In other respects I got through and over the severe weather of last month without any greater than the usual discomforts of such a season. But I was obliged to have a fire in my bed room for eight days together, for the first time in my life— All that time I was puzzling myself by endeavouring to guess how it had fared with George D: whether he had got clear away before the snow storm came down—whether he had been caught in it and been blocked on his way to take ship whether his start had been altogether arrested, and he compelled to remain in this ungenial climate till the thaw and milder days set in.² Your letter clears it all up in the most satisfactory way³—at which I greatly rejoice, and hope that you will not omit to transmit to him my congratulations amidst the first communications that go out from Down. Six weeks ago I bought his friend McLellan’s book on Primitive Marriage—⁴ For the reason already given it lies still unopened on my table; and the Movement of Plants only yet half through;⁵ while I have been again travelling for amusement with Miss Bird; this time to the northern island of Japan, amongst a race whom she calls “unmitigated savages, with a splendid physique”, (ahem!) and “bodies covered thickly over with hair, growing longest on the shoulders, from which it falls in flakes like the curls on a retriever’s back”.—⁶ I hope that she will send you a photograph from one of these originals for the next edition of the Descent of Man.—

Who the Devil’s M^r. Butler?⁷ When he can say, as you can say, that he has opened out to the knowledge of mankind a new field of Science, and has cultivated it through a life time with marvellous skill and industry, till all the most able men of every country have come to acknowledge the work as one of the greatest and most important discoveries of the age, while the worker is regarded with respect and honour by all who know him—well, when he can say that it will be time enough for you to pay attention to anything he may say.— The compliment you have received from M^r. Gladstone in such a kind and generous way, is proof enough of the estimation in which you are held by one of the first and noblest of men.⁸ Pity that he can’t know it.—

I have learnt from the Movement of Plants how to account for an appearance which I had long and constantly observed without being able to explain it in any way—why the rows of peas and beans in my garden always made their first start from the earth in little bright yellow arches.⁹ It is a pleasure to be able to explain to ones own mind an apparent mystery which had attracted observation over and over again while remaining a mystery still. When my gardener was sowing a row of peas last week I took up one of them in my fingers and dropped him into the rill, saying, “ah. when you come up, young fellow, I shall know something more about you than I did when your father was born”.— When I come to read the Chap^s. which explain the sleep & movements of leaves, as I am about to do, I shall surely be greatly interested, and acquire knowledge.¹⁰ But a thorough book like yours requires for its due appreciation some degree of information & mental calibre more closely allied to your own, than I, alas! can boast—.

I see that Professor Huxley is to succeed Fr. Buckland as Inspector of Fisheries.¹¹ I do not exactly know what the duties of the post may be; but I should fancy that they were pleasant ones, not onerous, and the position one of fair emolument & distinction. Will it induce him, I wonder to live out of London? or in any particular part of the country, inland or by the sea side? If I thought that a cottage like this, (which however might be enlarged by additions) would increase his comfort as a convenient locality for his professional work or as a seaside residence to escape to from time to time and for change air when the London atmosphere or the London season pronounced such a change to be beneficial, I would leave the reversion of the freehold with its 2$\frac{1}{4}$ acres to him when my hour has struck; and that in the ordinary nature of things cannot be very far off.—¹² But you permit me to indulge in the hope that I shall meet you at Worthing sometime in the course of the coming summer; and then we may have a talk. Moreover I wish particularly to show you a Report which we had drawn up three years ago by the City Surveyors, when the old leases were about to expire, respecting the best way of dealing with that property its value for sale, leasing, & amount of rents proper to be asked &c &c &c all of which things it would be well for you to be acquainted with. I look to that visit with interest and, of course, with the greatest of pleasure; and I herewith send my respects and humble petition to M^rs. Darwin that she will not let that promise slip from her own or your memory. After that I shall be able to look on with much equanimity, not to say with a considerable amount of malicious satisfaction, while you are being born bodily away to the Lakes kicking—and screaming—and struggling—like a refractory baby in the arms of its nurse.¹³

Dear M^r. Darwin | Most truly yours | Anthony Rich.

P.S. My lawn is the Paradise of earth-worms