The eye-witness above quoted (p. 237) continues:—
"There was a crowded conversazione in the evening at the rooms of the hospitable and genial Professor of Botany, Dr. Daubeny, where the almost sole topic was the battle of the Origin, and I was much struck with the fair and unprejudiced way in which the black coats and white cravats of Oxford discussed the question, and the frankness with which they offered their congratulations to the winners in the combat."[217]
C. D. to J. D. Hooker. Monday night [July 2nd, 1860].
My dear Hooker,—I have just received your letter. I have been very poorly, with almost continuous bad headache for forty-eight hours, and I was low enough, and thinking what a useless burthen I was to myself and all others, when your letter came, and it has so cheered me; your kindness and affection brought tears into my eyes. Talk of fame, honour, pleasure, wealth, all are dirt compared with affection; and this is a doctrine with which, I know, from your letter, that you will agree with from the bottom of your heart.... How I should have liked to have wandered about Oxford with you, if I had been well enough; and how still more I should have liked to have heard you triumphing over the Bishop. I am astonished at your success and audacity. It is something unintelligible to me how any one can argue in public like orators do. I had no idea you had this power. I have read lately so many hostile views, that I was beginning to think that perhaps I was wholly in the wrong, and that —— was right when he said the whole subject would be forgotten in ten years; but now that I hear that you and Huxley will fight publicly (which I am sure I never could do), I fully believe that our cause will, in the long-run, prevail. I am glad I was not in Oxford, for I should have been overwhelmed, with my [health] in its present state.
C. D. to J. D. Hooker. [July 1860.]
... I have just read the Quarterly.[218] It is uncommonly clever; it picks out with skill all the most conjectural parts, and brings forward well all the difficulties. It quizzes me quite splendidly by quoting the Anti-Jacobin versus my Grandfather. You are not alluded to, nor, strange to say, Huxley; and I can plainly see, here and there, ——'s hand. The concluding pages will make Lyell shake in his shoes. By Jove, if he sticks to us, he will be a real hero. Good-night. Your well-quizzed, but not sorrowful, and affectionate friend,
C. D.
I can see there has been some queer tampering with the review, for a page has been cut out and reprinted.
The following extract from a letter of Sept. 1st, 1860, is of interest, not only as showing that Lyell was still conscientiously working out his conversion, but also and especially as illustrating the remarkable fact that hardly any of my father's critics gave him any new objections—so fruitful had been his ponderings of twenty years:—
"I have been much interested by your letter of the 28th, received this morning. It has delighted me, because it demonstrates that you have thought a good deal lately on Natural Selection. Few things have surprised me more than the entire paucity of objections and difficulties new to me in the published reviews. Your remarks are of a different stamp and new to me."