My dear Lyell

I thank you much for your letter.¹ I had got to take pleasure in thinking how I could best snub my Reviewers; but I was determined in any case to follow your advice, & before I had got to the end of your letter I was convinced of the wisdom of your advice.² What an advantage it is to me to have such friend as you.— I shall follow every hint in your letter exactly.—

I have just heard from Murray; he says he sold 700 copies at his sale, & that he has not half the number to supply; so that I must begin at once.³ But I will & must finish my Drosera M.S. which will take me a week, for at this present moment I care more about Drosera than the origin of all the species in the world. But I will not publish on Drosera till next year, for I am frightened & astounded at my results.—⁴ I declare it is a certain fact, that one organ is so sensitive to touch that a weight of ^1/78,000 of a grain (ie seventy-eight times less weight than that, viz $\frac{1}{1000}$ of a grain, which will move the best chemical balance) suffices to cause conspicuous movement.—   Is it not curious that a plant sh^d be far more sensitive to a touch than any nerve in the human body! Yet I am perfectly sure that this is true.— When I am on my hobby-horse, I never can resist telling my friends, how well my hobby goes, so you must forgive the rider.—

Farewell my wisest & best of Lord Chancellors.

Yours most truly obliged | C. Darwin

Etty goes on pretty well. All the Doctors say any rapid progress is impossible.—

All this dreadful illness for last six months (& that wicked dear little Drosera) has made any progress in my larger Book almost nothing—

P.S. I must tell you one little fact which has pleased me. You may remember that I adduce Electrical Organs of Fish, as one of the greatest difficulties which had occurred to me, & Owen notices the passage in a singularly disingenous spirit.⁵ Well M^c.Donnell of Dublin (first rate man) writes to me that he felt the difficulty of whole case as overwhelming against me.⁶ Not only are the fishes which have electric organs very remote in scale; but the organ is near Head in some & near tail in others & supplied by wholly different nerves.—   It seems impossible that there could be any transition.

Some friend who is much opposed to me seems to have crowed over M^c.Donnell, who reports that he said to himself that if Darwin is right there must be homologous organs both near the Head & Tail in other non-electric fish. He set to work & by Jove he has found them. So that some of difficulty is removed, & is it not satisfactory that my hypothetical notions sh^d have lead to pretty discovery. M^c.Donnell seems very cautious; he says years must pass before he will venture to call himself a believer in my doctrine; but that on the subjects which he knows well viz morphology & embryology my views accord well & throw light on whole subject.—⁷