From W. W. Reade 14 May 1873
Dr. Rayner’s | Malvern
May 14, ’73
My dear Sir
I have got safely through the work, I will not say to my own satisfaction—but after all it does not much matter.1 The book wont live—I doubt whether a work of travels can be made to live—unless like your Journal it is also a work of science—or unless like Eothen it is a collection of witty essays.2
I thought afterwards that what I said at lunch the other day3 seemed to show an indifference to painstaking in style: but my opinion (such as it is) is really quite the other way. For my own part I find it so difficult to make a paragraph read well, that I have always had a pleasure in finding out that the great masters of style only did what they did by means of transposition—erasure &c.— All such cases I have noted down & can mention a few from memory— Pascal wrote one of his short Lettres Provinciales—seven times— Balzac had 16 proofs of the Peau de Chagrin—4 He is considered the best modern French writer so far as style is concerned— Rousseau is another case— item Dickens & Macaulay. In short it seems to be a rule to which there are few exceptions Thackeray seems to have been one—5
I am down here not for the cure, but merely for air & water— I know a lady in this neighbourhood who told me that Dr. Rayner took non-patients,6 and that there was always plenty of croquet going on—so here I have come in preference to making visits, and going through heavy late dinners &c.—
I hope that you were none the worse for your trip to London which certainly gave pleasure (to my knowledge) to a great number of your friends & disciples—7 I met an American young lady in London the other day—an old friend of mine—& we spoke of Chauncey Wright— Oh, she said, Mr. Wright thinks that there is no country like England; & I believe he thinks that there is no man like Mr. Darwin. Here she made une petite moue8—probably not liking your theory— One young lady with whom I correspond was shocked to hear I was a Darwinian— Me a monkey indeed! she said— However in her last letter she said she was pretty nearly converted for she sat next at dinner to a naval man who described the Fuegians to her—their habit of eating missionaries raw &c.—& her opinion seems to be now precisely what you express in your Conclusion—that if we must own them for our ancestors, we can go a little lower down without feeling the drop.
I dont write this to inveigle you into a correspondence— I know how much you have to do in that way, and beg you wont trouble to answer this letter. But if you can spare me a few lines, after you have read my book I shall be very glad to have them You will receive a copy in a fortnight or less—9
Yours very truly | Winwood Reade
Footnotes
Bibliography
Balzac, Honoré de. 1831. La peau de chagrin, roman philosophique. 2 vols. Paris: Charles Gosselin.
Journal of researches: Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by HMS Beagle, under the command of Captain FitzRoy, RN, from 1832 to 1836. By Charles Darwin. London: Henry Colburn. 1839.
Kinglake, Alexander William. 1844. Eothen; or, Traces of travel brought home from the East. London: J. Ollivier.
Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.
Pascal, Blaise. 1657. Les provinciales, ou les lettres escrites par Louis de Montalte, à un provincial de ses amis, & aux RR. PP. Jésuites: sur le sujet de la morale, & de la politique de ces peres. Cologne: Pierre de la Vallée.
Reade, William Winwood. 1873. The African sketch-book. 2 vols. London: Smith, Elder, and Co.
Summary
Has completed his book [The African sketch-book (1873)].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8912
- From
- William Winwood Reade
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Malvern
- Source of text
- DAR 176: 67
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8912,” accessed on 23 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8912.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 21