The Reluctant Mr. Darwin (26 page)

“I have placed the shell in fresh-water, to see if the valve will open,” Darwin informed Crick. He wanted to know whether, like the briny asparagus seeds, it was still viable after its travels.

There were matters of science at issue, and there were matters of life, common decency, mercy. “As the wretched beetle was still feebly alive,” he told Crick, “I have put it in a bottle with chopped laurel leaves, that it may die an easy and quicker death.” Any naturalist of his day knew that laurel leaves, when chopped, release prussic acid, containing hydrogen cyanide. Darwin didn't want his last beetle to suffer. He was a gentle man, quite aware that he'd already caused discomfort enough.

For the sake of clarity and simplicity, Darwin's writings are cited by abbreviated title.
Correspondence
indicates the series edited by Burkhardt, et al. A citation of “
Correspondence
3:43,” for instance, directs you to page 43 of the third volume, covering the years 1844–46.
CD's Notebooks
is the compilation by Barrett, et al. (1987).
Autobiography
refers to the Barlow (1969) edition. For citations from
The Origin of Species
, first edition, I've used a facsimile reprint of that edition (Harvard University Press, 1964, with an introduction by Ernst Mayr), cited as
The Origin
. Other sources are cited by author and year, or as descriptively necessary.

In quoting from Darwin's letters and private notes, I have in a very few instances made small corrections to spelling, punctuation, or grammar.

Home and Dry

the face on the dollar bill
: as it is, currently, on the Bank of England's £10 note.

“People often talk”
:
CD's Notebooks
, 222–23.

“God created humans pretty much”
: Gallup News Service, November 19, 2004, and earlier poll reports from Gallup.

The Fabric Falls

“a disgrace to yourself”
:
Autobiography
, 28.

“Why, the shape of his head”
: Ibid., 79.

“writing is most tedious & difficult”
:
Correspondence
2: 39.

“If there is the slightest foundation”
:
Beagle Diary
, 357, note 1, quoting from CD's ornithological notes.

“These facts origin (especially latter)”
:
Correspondence
2: 431.

called his notebooks on the “transmutation” of species
: Ibid., 2: 431.

he wrote “
Zoonomia,”
in genuflection
:
CD's Notebooks
, 170.

“all warm-blooded animals have arisen”
: Ibid., note 1.5.

“Why is life short”
: Ibid., 171.

One result: “adaptation”
: Ibid.

“who will dare say what result”
: Ibid., 172.

“According to this view animals”
: Ibid.

“Each species changes”
: Ibid., 175.

he drew a rough diagram of a lineage
: Ibid., 180.

“Heaven knows whether this agrees”
: Ibid., 181.

“Apteryx,” he wrote, “a good instance”
: Ibid., 211.

“Species have a real existence in nature”
: Quoted in Hull (1983), 68.

“Seldom in the history of ideas”
: Ibid., 15.

“The changes in species must be very slow”
:
CD's Notebooks
, 242.

“all the change that has been accumulated”
: Ibid., 248.

comments in the notebook about “my theory”
: Ibid.

“Study the wars of organic being”
: Ibid., 262.

“a most laborious, & painful effort”
: Ibid., 263.

the “whole fabric totters & falls”
: Ibid.

“But Man—wonderful Man”
: Ibid.

concluding firmly that, no, “he is no exception”
: Ibid.

“I have not been very well of late”
:
Correspondence
2: 47.

“anything which flurries me completely knocks me up”
: Ibid., 2: 51–52.

he repeated to his old friend W. D. Fox
: Ibid., 2: 91.

“If
not
marry,” he wrote
: Ibid., 2: 443.

“If marry,” he wrote
: Ibid.

this time “Marry” headed the longer column
: Ibid., 2: 444.

“It being proved necessary”
: Ibid.

“Mine is a bold theory”
:
CD's Notebooks
, 340.

“There must be some law”
: Ibid., 347.

he “thought much upon religion”
:
Correspondence
2: 432.

“their crowding and interfering with each other's”
: Wrigley and Souden, eds. (1986), 7.

prevented what Malthus called “checks”
: Ibid., 14.

“moral restraint, vice, and misery”
: Ibid., 16.

“the warring of the species as inference”
:
CD's Notebooks
, 375.

“One may say there is a force”
: Ibid., 375–76.

a burst of comments on the “differences”
: Ibid., 391.

increasingly confident references to “my theory”
: Ibid., 397–98.

labeled “N,” which was devoted to “metaphysical enquiries”
: Ibid., 561.

whether “love of the deity” might result
: Ibid., 291.

“Having proved mens & brutes bodies”
: Ibid., 409.

He wanted to illuminate those “laws of life”
: Ibid., 411.

Emma felt “bewildered” rather than giddy
: Quoted in Browne (1996), 391.

she called it “a painful void between us”
:
Correspondence
2: 123.

his “most sincere love & hearty gratitude”
: Ibid., 2: 114.

“Three principles, will account for all”
:
CD's Notebooks
, 412–13.

“Wasted entirely the last week of November”
:
Correspondence
2: 432.

“stupid & comfortable”
: Ibid., 2: 156.

The Kiwi's Egg

a multi-part paper titled “On the Anatomy of the Apteryx”
: Owen (1838).

referred to it in his notebook “D”
:
CD's Notebooks
, 340–41.

“Sometimes the egg-bearing female”
: Grzelewski (2000), 83.

“while you are acting conscientiously”
:
Autobiography
, 235–37.

This “sketch,” as he called it
:
Correspondence
2: 435.

what he called here “the natural means of selection”
: F. Darwin, ed. (1909), 4.

would be to “alter forms”
: Ibid., 9.

with their “deceptive appearance”
: Ibid., 49.

“not from one law of gravity”
: Ibid.

“death, famine, rapine, and the concealed war”
: Ibid., 52.

“There is a simple grandeur”
: Ibid.

“impious doctrines” such as atheism and socialism
: Desmond and Moore (1991), 297, quoting
The Times
in August 1842.

to his “dear old Titty” or his “dear Mammy”
:
Correspondence
2: 398; Ibid., 4: 146.

“classification consists in grouping beings”
: Ibid., 2: 376.

“a most strange fact”
: Ibid., 3: 421.

asking Hooker's help with “one little fact”
: Ibid., 3: 2.

“I have been now ever since my return”
: Ibid.

“Heaven forfend me from Lamarck”
: Ibid.

with its casual suggestion about “one living filament”
:
CD's Notebooks
, 170, note 1.5.

Lamarck thought, by “the supreme author of all things”
: Quoted in Mayr (1982), 353.

certain “subtle fluids” somehow
: Burkhardt, ed. (1977), 155–56; Bowler (1989), 84.

Lamarck's
sentiment intérieur:
Burkhardt, ed. (1977), 169.

a sort of “feeling of existence”
: Packard (1901), 325.

one particular organism, the “sea mat”
: Desmond and Moore (1991), 37;
Autobiography
, 50.

“I listened in silent astonishment”
:
Autobiography
, 49.

it “has met with some degree of favour”
: Lyell (1989), 2: 18.

“& also a gradual change of species”
:
Correspondence
3: 7.

intended for reading “in case of my sudden death”
: Ibid., 3: 43.

“it will be a considerable step in science”
: Ibid.

somehow leads to the “creation or production”
: Ibid., 3: 61.

“I have continued steadily reading”
: Ibid., 3: 67.

“The general conclusion at which I have slowly”
: Ibid.

“It has pleased Providence to arrange”
: Chambers (1994), 234.

he seemed to be…a “funny fellow”
:
Correspondence
3: 103.

he'd been “somewhat less amused”
: Ibid., 3: 108.

Darwin realized that “Mr. Vestiges”
: Ibid., 3: 253.

Point of Attachment

“Darwin's Delay”
: Gould (1977), 21.

“Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure”
:
Journal of Researches
(1845), reprinted as
The Voyage of the Beagle
(New York: Modern Library, 2001), 339.

about how “the creative power”
:
Journal of Researches
(1839), facsimile reprint (New York: Hafner, 1952), 474. See also pp. 461–62 for Darwin's cursory 1839 comments on diversity of beak shape among the finches.

marveling at “the amount of creative force”
:
Journal of Researches
(1845, 2001), 355.

he admitted feeling “astonished”
: Ibid., 337.

“Hence, both in space and time”
: Ibid.

“the replacement of extinct species by others”
:
CD's Notebooks
, 413, note 59.2.

made him a landlord, “a Lincolnshire squire”
:
Correspondence
3: 181.

“My life goes on like Clockwork”
: Ibid., 3: 345.

“How much time lost by illness!”
: Ibid., 3: 397.

“Where does your father do his barnacles?”
: Browne (1996), 473.

“I am not inclined to take much for granted”
:
Correspondence
3: 250.

“How painfully (to me) true”
: Ibid., 3: 253.

mentioning it fondly as “Mr. Arthrobalanus”
: Ibid., 3: 356.

Geoffroy discerned “unity of plan”
: Desmond (1992), 47; Mayr (1982), 362.

“lies in our ignorance of what”
:
Correspondence
2: 375.

that classification should reflect “consanguinity”
: Ibid., 2: 376.

that Gray “intended to anticipate” Darwin's work
: Ibid., 4: 162.

or as Charles sometimes called him, “the Governor”
: See, e.g., ibid., 2: 86, 118.

“the kindest man I ever knew”
:
Autobiography
, 28.

“unusually unwell, with swimming of head”
:
Correspondence
4: 384.

“My own ever dear Mammy”
: Ibid., 4: 183.

rationalized that it was “only a ceremony”
: Ibid., 5: 9.

rudimentary or “abortive” structures
: Ibid., 3: 365.

“I have been struck”
: Ibid., 4: 344.

“Systematic work wd be easy were it not”
: Ibid.

“My cirripedial task is an eternal one”
: Ibid., 4: 319.

“a small, poor first fruit”
: Ibid., 4: 344.

“of which creatures I am wonderfully tired”
: Ibid., 5: 100.

“a shout of paeans for the Barnacles”
: Ibid., 4: 406.

The Royal Medal was “quite a nugget”
: Ibid., 6: 55.

“Health very bad with much sickness”
: Ibid., 4: 385.