My dear Sir, I am particularly obliged to you for having so kindly send me your 'Phytographie' (A book on the methods of botanical research, more especially of systematic work.); for if I had merely seen it advertised, Ishould not have supposed that it could have concerned me. As it is, I have read with very great interest about a quarter, but will not delay longer thanking you. All that you say seems to me very clear and convincing, and as in all your writings I find a large number of philosophical remarks new to me, and no doubt shall find many more. They have recalled many a puzzle through which I passed when monographing the Cirripedia; and your book in those days would have been quite invaluable to me. It has pleased me to find that I have always followed your plan of making notes on separate pieces of paper; I keep several scores of large portfolios, arranged on very thin shelves about two inches apart, fastened to the walls of my study, and each shelf has its proper name or title; and I can thus put at once every memorandum into its proper place. Your book will, I am sure, be very useful to many young students, and I shall beg my son Francis (who intends to devote himself to the physiology of plants) to read it carefully.
As for myself I am taking a fortnight's rest, after sending a pile of MS. to the printers, and it was a piece of good fortune that your book arrived as I was getting into my carriage, for I wanted something to read whilst away from home. My MS. relates to the movements of plants, and I think that I have succeeded in showing that all the more important great classes of movements are due to the modification of a kind of movement common to all parts of all plants from their earliest youth.
Pray give my kind remembrances to your son, and with my highest respect and best thanks, Believe me, my dear Sir, yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN.
P.S.--It always pleases me to exalt plants in the organic scale, and if you will take the trouble to read my last chapter when my book (which will be sadly too big) is published and sent to you, I hope and think that you also will admire some of the beautiful adaptations by which seedling plants are enabled to perform their proper functions.
[The book was published on November 6, 1880, and 1500 copies were disposed of at Mr. Murray's sale. With regard to it he wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker (November 23):--"Your note has pleased me much--for I did not expect that you would have had time to read ANY of it. Read the last chapter, and you will know the whole result, but without the evidence. The case, however, of radicles bending after exposure for an hour to geotropism, with their tips (or brains) cut off is, I think, worth your reading (bottom of page 525); it astounded me. The next most remarkable fact, as it appeared to me (page 148), is the discrimination of the tip of the radicle between a slightly harder and softer object affixed on opposite sides of tip. But I will bother you no more about my book. The sensitiveness of seedlings to light is marvellous."To another friend, Mr. Thiselton Dyer, he wrote (November 28, 1880):--"Very many thanks for your most kind note, but you think too highly of our work, not but what this is very pleasant...Many of the Germans are very contemptuous about making out the use of organs; but they may sneer the souls out of their bodies, and I for one shall think it the most interesting part of Natural History. Indeed you are greatly mistaken if you doubt for one moment on the very great value of your constant and most kind assistance to us."The book was widely reviewed, and excited much interest among the general public. The following letter refers to a leading article in the "Times", November 20, 1880:]
CHARLES DARWIN TO MRS. HALIBURTON. (Mrs. Haliburton was a daughter of my father's early friend, the late Mr. Owen, of Woodhouse.)Down, November 22, 1880.
My dear Sarah, You see how audaciously I begin; but I have always loved and shall ever love this name. Your letter has done more than please me, for its kindness has touched my heart. I often think of old days and of the delight of my visits to Woodhouse, and of the deep debt of gratitude I owe to your father. It was very good of you to write. I had quite forgotten my old ambition about the Shrewsbury newspaper (Mrs. Haliburton had reminded him of his saying as a boy that if Eddowes' newspaper ever alluded to him as "our deserving fellow-townsman," his ambition would be amply gratified.);but I remember the pride which I felt when I saw in a book about beetles the impressive words "captured by C. Darwin." Captured sounded so grand compared with caught. This seemed to me glory enough for any man! I do not know in the least what made the "Times" glorify me (The following is the opening sentence of the leading article:--"Of all our living men of science none have laboured longer and to more splendid purpose than Mr. Darwin."), for it has sometimes pitched into me ferociously.