To Charles Lyell 4 May [1869]1
Down. | Beckenham. | Kent. S.E.
May 4th
My dear Lyell
I have been applied to for some photographs (carte de visite) to be copied to ornament the Diplomas of Hon. members of a new Nat. Soc in Servia!!!2 Will you give me one for this purpose? I possess only a full-length one of you in my own album, & the face is too small, I think, to be copied.—
I hope that you get on well with your work & have satisfied yourself on the difficult point of glacier-lakes.—3 Thank Heaven I have finished correcting the new edit. of Origin, & am at my old work of Sexual selection.—4
Wallace’s article struck me as admirable. How well he brought out the revolution which you effected some thirty years ago.5 I thought I had fully appreciated the revolution, but I was astounded at the extracts from Cuvier.—6 What a good sketch of nat. selection, but I was dreadfully disappointed about man: it seems to me incredibly strange & weak; & had I not known to the contrary, would have sworn it had been inserted by some other hand.—7 But I believe that you will not agree quite in all this.
My dear Lyell | Ever yours sincerely | C. Darwin
I have got over my crushing by my horse wonderfully—3 weeks, instead of 3 months as Paget expected.8
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Davies, Gordon Leslie. [1969.] The earth in decay: a history of British geomorphology 1578–1878. London: MacDonald Technical & Scientific.
Lyell, Charles. 1865. Elements of geology, or the ancient changes of the earth and its inhabitants as illustrated by geological monuments. 6th edition, revised. London: John Murray.
Origin 5th ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 5th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1869.
Summary
Asks for a photograph of CL to be used by a society [in Serbia].
Comments on article by Wallace ["Sir Charles Lyell on geological climates and the Origin", Q. Rev. 126 (1869): 359–94].
Has finished new edition of Origin [5th (1869)]
and is back at work on sexual selection [Descent].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6725
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.369)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6725,” accessed on 9 November 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6725.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 17