Volume 1

More letters of Charles Darwin : a record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters / edited by Francis Darwin ... and A.C. Seward.

  • Charles Darwin
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: More letters of Charles Darwin : a record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters / edited by Francis Darwin ... and A.C. Seward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to me like three months. 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 Zygcena, the burnet-moth. I was at that time very pas¬ sionate (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 10J 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 Rhiadr1 ; 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. 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., pp. 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. To R. W. Darwin. Sunday Morning [Edinburgh, October, 1825]. My dear Father As I suppose Erasmus2 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 1 Pistyll Rhiadr proceeds from Llyn Pen Rhiadr down the Llyfnant to the Dovey. 2 Erasmus Alvey Darwin (1804-81), elder brother of Charles Darwin. Letter 1
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