快猫短视频

The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Volume 13: 1865 edited by Frederick Burkhardt, Duncan M. Porter, Sheila Ann Dean, Samantha Evans, Shelley Innes, Alison M. Pearn, Cambridge University Press, 拢65, ISBN 0521824133 Reviewed by Roy Herbert

THE latest in this staggering series shows Charles Darwin on undiminished form as a letter writer, averaging about one a day in 1865, even though for much of the year he was ill. He was also engaged in writing an important paper on climbing plants, and was involved in tiring scientific squabbles and domestic affairs. Yet the letters are unfailingly courteous and elegant, illustrating the gentlemanly side of Victorian social life, even when disputatious.

Darwin鈥檚 illness was eventually cured, apparently after he adopted a rigorous diet.

Apart from illness he also suffered sadness at the death of friends, including William Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens. However, on the death of Robert Fitzroy, captain of The Beagle, Darwin wrote, 鈥淚 once loved him sincerely; but so bad a temper & so given to take offence that I gradually quite lost my love & wished only to keep out of contact with him.鈥�

Occasionally the wider world sneaks into The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. This was the year in which the American Civil War ended.

Asa Gray, professor of natural history at Harvard, wrote to Darwin saying that Jefferson Davis, leader of the Confederacy, ought to be sentenced to hang and the sentence commuted 鈥� 鈥渘ot from policy but for his greater humiliation鈥�.