More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1
1813.
When I was four years and a half old I went to the sea, and stayed there some weeks. I remember many things, but with the exception of the maidservants (and these are not individualised) I recollect none of my family who were there. I remember either myself or Catherine being naughty, and being shut up in a room and trying to break the windows. I have an obscure picture of a house before my eyes, and of a neighbouring small shop, where the owner gave me one fig, but which to my great joy turned out to be two: this fig was given me that the man might kiss the maidservant. I remember a common walk to a kind of well, on the road to which was a cottage shaded with damascene (Chapter I./2. Damson is derived from Damascene; the fruit was formerly known as a "Damask Prune.") trees, inhabited by an old man, called a hermit, with white hair, who used to give us damascenes. I know not whether the damascenes, or the reverence and indistinct fear for this old man produced the greatest effect on my memory. I remember when going there crossing in the carriage a broad ford, and fear and astonishment of white foaming water has made a vivid impression. I think memory of events commences abruptly; that is, I remember these earliest things quite as clearly as others very much later in life, which were equally impressed on me. Some very early recollections are connected with fear at Parkfield and with poor Betty Harvey. I remember with horror her story of people being pushed into the canal by the towing rope, by going the wrong side of the horse. I had the greatest horror of this story — keen instinct against death. Some other recollections are those of vanity — namely, thinking that people were admiring me, in one instance for perseverance and another for boldness in climbing a low tree, and what is odder, a consciousness, as if instinctive, that I was vain, and contempt of myself. My supposed admirer was old Peter Haile the bricklayer, and the tree the mountain ash on the lawn. All my recollections seem to be connected most closely with myself; now Catherine (Catherine Darwin) seems to recollect scenes where others were the chief actors. When my mother died I was 8 1/2 years old, and {Catherine} one year less, yet she remembers all particulars and events of each day whilst I scarcely recollect anything (and so with very many other cases) except being sent for, the memory of going into her room, my father meeting me — crying afterwards. I recollect my mother's gown and scarcely anything of her appearance, except one or two walks with her. I have no distinct remembrance of any conversation, and those only of a very trivial nature. I remember her saying "if she did ask me to do something," which I said she had, "it was solely for my good."
Catherine remembers my mother crying, when she heard of my grandmother's death. Also when at Parkfield how Aunt Sarah and Aunt Kitty used to receive her. Susan, like me, only remembers affairs personal. It is sufficiently odd this {difference} in subjects remembered. Catherine says she does not remember the impression made upon her by external things, as scenery, but for things which she reads she has an excellent memory, i.e., for ideas. Now her sympathy being ideal, it is part of her character, and shows how easily her kind of memory was stamped, a vivid thought is repeated, a vivid impression forgotten.
I remember obscurely the illumination after the battle of Waterloo, and the Militia exercising about that period, in the field opposite our house.
1817.
At 8 1/2 years old I went to Mr. Case's School. (Chapter I/3. A day-school at Shrewsbury kept by Rev. G. Case, minister of the Unitarian Chapel ("Life and Letters," Volume I., page 27 et seq.)) I remember how very much I was afraid of meeting the dogs in Barker Street, and how at school I could not get up my courage to fight. I was very timid by nature. I remember I took great delight at school in fishing for newts in the quarry pool. I had thus young formed a strong taste for collecting, chiefly seals, franks, etc., but also pebbles and minerals — one which was given me by some boy decided this taste. I believe shortly after this, or before, I had smattered in botany, and certainly when at Mr. Case's School I was very fond of gardening, and invented some great falsehoods about being able to colour crocuses as I liked. (Chapter I./4. The story is given in the "Life and Letters," I., page 28, the details being slightly different.) At this time I felt very strong friendship for some boys. It was soon after I began collecting stones, i.e., when 9 or 10, that I distinctly recollect the desire I had of being able to know something about every pebble in front of the hall door — it was my earliest and only geological aspiration at that time. I was in those days a very great story-teller — for the pure pleasure of exciting attention and surprise. I stole fruit and hid it for these same motives, and injured trees by barking them for similar ends. I scarcely ever went out walking without saying I had seen a pheasant or some strange bird (natural history taste); these lies, when not detected, I presume, excited my attention, as I recollect them vividly, not connected with shame, though some I do, but as something which by having produced a great effect on my mind, gave pleasure like a tragedy. I recollect when I was at Mr. Case's inventing a whole fabric to show how fond I was of speaking the TRUTH! My invention is still so vivid in my mind, that I could almost fancy it was true, did not memory of former shame tell me it was false. I have no particularly happy or unhappy recollections of this time or earlier periods of my life. I remember well a walk I took with a boy named Ford across some fields to a farmhouse on the Church Stretton road. I do not remember any mental pursuits excepting those of collecting stones, etc., gardening, and about this time often going with my father in his carriage, telling him of my lessons, and seeing game and other wild birds, which was a great delight to me. I was born a naturalist.
When I was 9 1/2 years old (July 1818) I went with Erasmus to see Liverpool: it has left no impressions on my mind, except most trifling ones — fear of the coach upsetting, a good dinner, and an extremely vague memory of ships.
In Midsummer of this year I went to Dr. Butler's School. (Chapter I./5. Darwin entered Dr. Butler's school in Shrewsbury in the summer of 1818, and remained there till 1825 ("Life and Letters," I., page 30).) I well recollect the first going there, which oddly enough I cannot of going to Mr. Case's, the first school of all. I remember the year 1818 well, not from having first gone to a public school, but from writing those figures in my school book, accompanied with obscure thoughts, now fulfilled, whether I should recollect in future life that year.
In September (1818) I was ill with the scarlet fever. I well remember the wretched feeling of being delirious.
1819, July (10 1/2 years old).
Went to the sea at Plas Edwards and stayed there three weeks, which now appears to me like three months. (Chapter I./6. Plas Edwards, at Towyn, on the Welsh coast.) I remember a certain shady green road (where I saw a snake) and a waterfall, with a degree of pleasure, which must be connected with the pleasure from scenery, though not directly recognised as such. The sandy plain before the house has left a strong impression, which is obscurely connected with an indistinct remembrance of curious insects, probably a Cimex mottled with red, and Zygaena, the burnet-moth. I was at that time very passionate (when I swore like a trooper) and quarrelsome. The former passion has I think nearly wholly but slowly died away. When journeying there by stage coach I remember a recruiting officer (I think I should know his face to this day) at tea time, asking the maid-servant for toasted bread and butter. I was convulsed with laughter and thought it the quaintest and wittiest speech that ever passed from the mouth of man. Such is wit at 10 1/2 years old. The memory now flashes across me of the pleasure I had in the evening on a blowy day walking along the beach by myself and seeing the gulls and cormorants wending their way home in a wild and irregular course. Such poetic pleasures, felt so keenly in after years, I should not have expected so early in life.
1820, July.
Went a riding tour (on old Dobbin) with Erasmus to Pistyll Rhiadr (Chapter I./7. Pistyll Rhiadr proceeds from Llyn Pen Rhiadr down the Llyfnant to the Dovey.); of this I recollect little, an indistinct picture of the fall, but I well remember my astonishment on hearing that fishes could jump up it.
(Chapter I./8. The autobiographical fragment here comes to an end. The next letters give some account of Darwin as an Edinburgh student. He has described ("Life and Letters," I., pages 35-45) his failure to be interested in the official teaching of the University, his horror at the operating theatre, and his gradually increasing dislike of medical study, which finally determined his leaving Edinburgh, and entering Cambridge with a view to taking Orders.)
LETTER 1. TO R.W. DARWIN. Sunday Morning {Edinburgh, October, 1825}.
My dear Father
As I suppose Erasmus (Erasmus Darwin) has given all the particulars of the journey, I will say no more about it, except that altogether it has cost me 7 pounds. We got into our lodgings yesterday evening, which are very comfortable and near the College. Our Landlady, by name Mrs. Mackay, is a nice clean old body — exceedingly civil and attentive. She lives in "11, Lothian Street, Edinburgh" (1/1. In a letter printed in the "Edinburgh Evening Despatch" of May 22nd, 1888, the writer suggested that a tablet should be placed on the house, 11, Lothian Street. This suggestion was carried out in 1888 by Mr. Ralph Richardson (Clerk of the Commissary Court, Edinburgh), who obtained permission from the proprietors to affix a tablet to the house, setting forth that Charles Darwin resided there as an Edinburgh University student. We are indebted to Mr. W.K. Dickson for obtaining for us this information, and to Mr. Ralph Richardson for kindly supplying us with particulars. See Mr. Richardson's Inaugural Address, "Trans. Edinb. Geol. Soc." 1894-95; also "Memorable Edinburgh Houses," by Wilmot Harrison, 1898.), and only four flights of steps from the ground-floor, which is very moderate to some other lodgings that we were nearly taking. The terms are 1 pound 6 shillings for two very nice and LIGHT bedrooms and a sitting-room; by the way, light bedrooms are very scarce articles in Edinburgh, since most of them are little holes in which there is neither air nor light. We called on Dr. Hanley the first morning, whom I think we never should have found, had it not been for a good-natured Dr. of Divinity who took us into his library and showed us a map, and gave us directions how to find him. Indeed, all the Scotchmen are so civil and attentive, that it is enough to make an Englishman ashamed of himself. I should think Dr. Butler or any other fat English Divine would take two utter strangers into his library and show them the way! When at last we found the Doctor, and having made all the proper speeches on both sides, we all three set out and walked all about the town, which we admire excessively; indeed Bridge Street is the most extraordinary thing I ever saw, and when we first looked over the sides, we could hardly believe our eyes, when instead of a fine river, we saw a stream of people. We spend all our mornings in promenading about the town, which we know pretty well, and in the evenings we go to the play to hear Miss Stephens (Probably Catherine Stephens), which is quite delightful; she is very popular here, being encored to such a degree, that she can hardly get on with the play. On Monday we are going to Der F (I do not know how to spell the rest of the word). (1/2. "Der F" is doubtless "Der Freischutz," which appeared in 1820, and of which a selection was given in London, under Weber's direction, in 1825. The last of Weber's compositions, "From Chindara's warbling fount," was written for Miss Stephens, who sang it to his accompaniment "the last time his fingers touched the key-board." (See "Dict. of Music," "Stephens" and "Weber.")) Before we got into our lodgings, we were staying at the Star Hotel in Princes St., where to my surprise I met with an old schoolfellow, whom I like very much; he is just come back from a walking tour in Switzerland and is now going to study for his {degree?} The introductory lectures begin next Wednesday, and we were matriculated for them on Saturday; we pay 10s., and write our names in a book, and the ceremony is finished; but the Library is not free to us till we get a ticket from a Professor. We just have been to Church and heard a sermon of only 20 minutes. I expected, from Sir Walter Scott's account, a soul-cutting discourse of 2 hours and a half.
I remain your affectionate son, C. DARWIN.
LETTER 2. TO CAROLINE DARWIN. January 6th, 1826. Edinburgh.
Many thanks for your very entertaining letter, which was a great relief after hearing a long stupid lecture from Duncan on Materia Medica, but as you know nothing either of the Lectures or Lecturers, I will give you a short account of them. Dr. Duncan is so very learned that his wisdom has left no room for his sense, and he lectures, as I have already said, on the Materia Medica, which cannot be translated into any word expressive enough of its stupidity. These few last mornings, however, he has shown signs of improvement, and I hope he will "go on as well as can be expected." His lectures begin at eight in the morning. Dr. Hope begins at ten o'clock, and I like both him and his lectures VERY much (after which Erasmus goes to "Mr. Sizars on Anatomy," who is a charming Lecturer). At 12 the Hospital, after which I attend Monro on Anatomy. I dislike him and his lectures so much, that I cannot speak with decency about them. Thrice a week we have what is called Clinical lectures, which means lectures on the sick people in the Hospital — these I like very much. I said this account should be short, but I am afraid it has been too long, like the lectures themselves.
I will be a good boy and tell something about Johnson again (not but what I am very much surprised that Papa should so forget himself as call me, a Collegian in the University of Edinburgh, a boy). He has changed his lodgings for the third time; he has got very cheap ones, but I am afraid it will not answer, for they must make up by cheating. I hope you like Erasmus' official news, he means to begin every letter so. You mentioned in your letter that Emma was staying with you: if she is not gone, ask her to tell Jos that I have not succeeded in getting any titanium, but that I will try again...I want to know how old I shall be next birthday — I believe 17, and if so, I shall be forced to go abroad for one year, since it is necessary that I shall have completed my 21st year before I take my degree. Now you have no business to be frowning and puzzling over this letter, for I did not promise to write a good hand to you.
LETTER 3. TO J.S. HENSLOW.
(3/1. Extracts from Darwin's letters to Henslow were read before the Cambridge Philosophical Society on November 16th, 1835. Some of the letters were subsequently printed, in an 8vo pamphlet of 31 pages, dated December 1st, 1835, for private distribution among the members of the Society. A German translation by W. Preyer appeared in the "Deutsche Rundschau," June 1891.)
{15th August, 1832. Monte Video.}
We are now beating up the Rio Plata, and I take the opportunity of beginning a letter to you. I did not send off the specimens from Rio Janeiro, as I grudged the time it would take to pack them up. They are now ready to be sent off and most probably go by this packet. If so they go to Falmouth (where Fitz-Roy has made arrangements) and so will not trouble your brother's agent in London. When I left England I was not fully aware how essential a kindness you offered me when you undertook to receive my boxes. I do not know what I should do without such head-quarters. And now for an apologetical prose about my collection: I am afraid you will say it is very small, but I have not been idle, and you must recollect what a very small show hundreds of species make. The box contains a good many geological specimens; I am well aware that the greater number are too small. But I maintain that no person has a right to accuse me, till he has tried carrying rocks under a tropical sun. I have endeavoured to get specimens of every variety of rock, and have written notes upon all. If you think it worth your while to examine any of them I shall be very glad of some mineralogical information, especially on any numbers between 1 and 254 which include Santiago rocks. By my catalogue I shall know which you may refer to. As for my plants, "pudet pigetque mihi." All I can say is that when objects are present which I can observe and particularise about, I cannot summon resolution to collect when I know nothing.
It is positively distressing to walk in the glorious forest amidst such treasures and feel they are all thrown away upon one. My collection from the Abrolhos is interesting, as I suspect it nearly contains the whole flowering vegetation — and indeed from extreme sterility the same may almost be said of Santiago. I have sent home four bottles with animals in spirits, I have three more, but would not send them till I had a fourth. I shall be anxious to hear how they fare. I made an enormous collection of Arachnidae at Rio, also a good many small beetles in pill boxes, but it is not the best time of year for the latter. Amongst the lower animals nothing has so much interested me as finding two species of elegantly coloured true Planaria inhabiting the dewy forest! The false relation they bear to snails is the most extraordinary thing of the kind I have ever seen. In the same genus (or more truly family) some of the marine species possess an organisation so marvellous that I can scarcely credit my eyesight. Every one has heard of the discoloured streaks of water in the equatorial regions. One I examined was owing to the presence of such minute Oscillariae that in each square inch of surface there must have been at least one hundred thousand present. After this I had better be silent, for you will think me a Baron Munchausen amongst naturalists. Most assuredly I might collect a far greater number of specimens of Invertebrate animals if I took less time over each; but I have come to the conclusion that two animals with their original colour and shape noted down will be more valuable to naturalists than six with only dates and place. I hope you will send me your criticisms about my collection; and it will be my endeavour that nothing you say shall be lost on me. I would send home my writings with my specimens, only I find I have so repeatedly occasion to refer back that it would be a serious loss to me. I cannot conclude about my collection without adding that I implicitly trust in your keeping an exact account against all the expense of boxes, etc., etc. At this present minute we are at anchor in the mouth of the river, and such a strange scene as it is. Everything is in flames — the sky with lightning, the water with luminous particles, and even the very masts are pointed with a blue flame. I expect great interest in scouring over the plains of Monte Video, yet I look back with regret to the Tropics, that magic lure to all naturalists. The delight of sitting on a decaying trunk amidst the quiet gloom of the forest is unspeakable and never to be forgotten. How often have I then wished for you. When I see a banana I well recollect admiring them with you in Cambridge — little did I then think how soon I should eat their fruit.
August 15th. In a few days the box will go by the "Emulous" packet (Capt. Cooke) to Falmouth and will be forwarded to you. This letter goes the same way, so that if in course of due time you do not receive the box, will you be kind enough to write to Falmouth? We have been here (Monte Video) for some time; but owing to bad weather and continual fighting on shore, we have scarcely ever been able to walk in the country. I have collected during the last month nothing, but to-day I have been out and returned like Noah's Ark with animals of all sorts. I have to-day to my astonishment found two Planariae living under dry stones: ask L. Jenyns if he has ever heard of this fact. I also found a most curious snail, and spiders, beetles, snakes, scorpions ad libitum, and to conclude shot a Cavia weighing a cwt. — On Friday we sail for the Rio Negro, and then will commence our real wild work. I look forward with dread to the wet stormy regions of the south, but after so much pleasure I must put up with some sea-sickness and misery.
LETTER 4. TO J.S. HENSLOW. Monte Video, 24th November 1832.
We arrived here on the 24th of October, after our first cruise on the coast of Patagonia. North of the Rio Negro we fell in with some little schooners employed in sealing: to save the loss of time in surveying the intricate mass of banks, Capt. Fitz-Roy has hired two of them and has put officers on them. It took us nearly a month fitting them out; as soon as this was finished we came back here, and are now preparing for a long cruise to the south. I expect to find the wild mountainous country of Terra del Fuego very interesting, and after the coast of Patagonia I shall thoroughly enjoy it. — I had hoped for the credit of Dame Nature, no such country as this last existed; in sad reality we coasted along 240 miles of sand hillocks; I never knew before, what a horrid ugly object a sand hillock is. The famed country of the Rio Plata in my opinion is not much better: an enormous brackish river, bounded by an interminable green plain is enough to make any naturalist groan. So Hurrah for Cape Horn and the Land of Storms. Now that I have had my growl out, which is a privilege sailors take on all occasions, I will turn the tables and give an account of my doing in Nat. History. I must have one more growl: by ill luck the French Government has sent one of its collectors to the Rio Negro, where he has been working for the last six months, and is now gone round the Horn. So that I am very selfishly afraid he will get the cream of all the good things before me. As I have nobody to talk to about my luck and ill luck in collecting, I am determined to vent it all upon you. I have been very lucky with fossil bones; I have fragments of at least 6 distinct animals: as many of them are teeth, I trust, shattered and rolled as they have been, they will be recognised. I have paid all the attention I am capable of to their geological site; but of course it is too long a story for here. 1st, I have the tarsi and metatarsi very perfect of a Cavia; 2nd, the upper jaw and head of some very large animal with four square hollow molars and the head greatly protruded in front. I at first thought it belonged either to the Megalonyx or Megatherium (4/1). The animal may probably have been Grypotherium Darwini, Ow. The osseous plates mentioned below must have belonged to one of the Glyptodontidae, and not to Megatherium. We are indebted to Mr. Kerr for calling our attention to a passage in Buckland's "Bridgewater Treatise" (Volume II., page 20, note), where bony armour is ascribed to Megatherium.); in confirmation of this in the same formation I found a large surface of the osseous polygonal plates, which "late observations" (what are they?) show belong to the Megatherium. Immediately I saw this I thought they must belong to an enormous armadillo, living species of which genus are so abundant here. 3rd, The lower jaw of some large animal which, from the molar teeth, I should think belonged to the Edentata; 4th, some large molar teeth which in some respects would seem to belong to an enormous rodent; 5th, also some smaller teeth belonging to the same order. If it interests you sufficiently to unpack them, I shall be very curious to hear something about them. Care must be taken in this case not to confuse the tallies. They are mingled with marine shells which appear to me identical with what now exist. But since they were deposited in their beds several geological changes have taken place in the country. So much for the dead, and now for the living: there is a poor specimen of a bird which to my unornithological eyes appears to be a happy mixture of a lark, pigeon and snipe (No. 710). Mr. MacLeay himself never imagined such an inosculating creature: I suppose it will turn out to be some well-known bird, although it has quite baffled me. I have taken some interesting Amphibia; a new Trigonocephalus beautifully connecting in its habits Crotalus and the Viperidae, and plenty of new (as far as my knowledge goes) saurians. As for one little toad, I hope it may be new, that it may be christened "diabolicus." Milton must allude to this very individual when he talks of "squat like a toad" (4/2. "...him {Satan} there they {Ithuriel and Zephon} found, Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve" ("Paradise Lost," Book IV., line 800).