C. D. to J. D. Hooker. May 9th [1856].
... I very much want advice and truthful consolation if you can give it. I had a good talk with Lyell about my species work, and he urges me strongly to publish something. I am fixed against any periodical or Journal, as I positively will not expose myself to an Editor or a Council allowing a publication for which they might be abused. If I publish anything it must be a very thin and little volume, giving a sketch of my views and difficulties; but it is really dreadfully unphilosophical to give a résumé, without exact references, of an unpublished work. But Lyell seemed to think I might do this, at the suggestion of friends, and on the ground, which I I might state, that I had been at work for eighteen[144] years, and yet could not publish for several years, and especially as I could point out difficulties which seemed to me to require especial investigation. Now what think you? I should be really grateful for advice. I thought of giving up a couple of months and writing such a sketch, and trying to keep my judgment open whether or no to publish it when completed. It will be simply impossible for me to give exact references; anything important I should state on the authority of the author generally; and instead of giving all the facts on which I ground my opinion, I could give by memory only one or two. In the Preface I would state that the work could not be considered strictly scientific, but a mere sketch or outline of a future work in which full references, &c., should be given. Eheu, eheu, I believe I should sneer at any one else doing this, and my only comfort is, that I truly never dreamed of it, till Lyell suggested it, and seems deliberately to think it advisable.
I am in a peck of troubles, and do pray forgive me for troubling you.
Yours affectionately.
He made an attempt at a sketch of his views, but as he wrote to Fox in October 1856:—
"I found it such unsatisfactory work that I have desisted, and am now drawing up my work as perfect as my materials of nineteen years' collecting suffice, but do not intend to stop to perfect any line of investigation beyond current work."
And in November he wrote to Sir Charles Lyell:—
"I am working very steadily at my big book; I have found it quite impossible to publish any preliminary essay or sketch; but am doing my work as completely as my present materials allow without waiting to perfect them. And this much acceleration I owe to you."
Again to Mr. Fox, in February, 1857:—
"I am got most deeply interested in my subject; though I wish I could set less value on the bauble fame, either present or posthumous, than I do, but not I think, to any extreme degree: yet, if I know myself, I would work just as hard, though with less gusto, if I knew that my book would be published for ever anonymously."