Chapter 321

I am very glad that this will reach you at Kew. You will then get rest, and I do hope some lull in anxiety and fear. Nothing is so dreadful in this life as fear; it still sickens me when I cannot help remembering some of the many illnesses our children have endured. My father, who was a sceptical man, was convinced that he had distinctly traced several cases of scarlet fever to handling letters from convalescents.

The vases (662/1. Probably Wedgwood ware.) did come from my sister Susan. She is recovering, and was much pleased to hear that you liked them; I have now sent one of your notes to her, in which you speak of them as "enchanting," etc. I have had a bad spell--vomiting, every day for eleven days, and some days many times after every meal. It is astonishing the degree to which I keep up some strength. Dr. Brinton was here two days ago, and says he sees no reason [why] I may not recover my former degree of health. I should like to live to do a little more work, and often I feel sure I shall, and then again I feel that my tether is run out.

Your Hastings note, my dear old fellow, was a Copley Medal to me and more than a Copley Medal: not but what I know well that you overrate what I have been able to do. (662/2. The proposal to give the medal to Darwin failed in 1863, but his friends were successful in 1864: see "Life and Letters," III., page 28.) Now that I am disabled, I feel more than ever what a pleasure observing and making out little difficulties is. By the way, here is a very little fact which may interest you. A partridge foot is described in "Proc. Zoolog. Soc." with a huge ball of earth attached to it as hard as rock. (662/3. "Proc. Zool. Soc." 1863, page 127, by Prof. Newton, who sent the foot to Darwin: see "Origin," Edition VI., page 328.) Bird killed in 1860. Leg has been sent me, and I find it diseased, and no doubt the exudation caused earth to accumulate; now already thirty-two plants have come up from this ball of earth.

By Jove! I must write no more. Good-bye, my best of friends.

There is an Italian edition of the "Origin" preparing. This makes the fifth foreign edition--i.e. in five foreign countries. Owen will not be right in telling Longmans that the book would be utterly forgotten in ten years. Hurrah!