July 1853.—"I am extremely glad to hear that you approved of my cirripedial volume. I have spent an almost ridiculous amount of labour on the subject, and certainly would never have undertaken it had I foreseen what a job it was."
In September, 1854, his Cirripede work was practically finished, and he wrote to Sir J. Hooker:
"I have been frittering away my time for the last several weeks in a wearisome manner, partly idleness, and odds and ends, find sending ten thousand Barnacles[124] out of the house all over the world. But I shall now in a day or two begin to look over my old notes on species. What a deal I shall have to discuss with you; I shall have to look sharp that I do not 'progress' into one of the greatest bores in life, to the few like you with lots of knowledge."
FOOTNOTES:
[109] I must not omit to mention a member of the household who accompanied him. This was his butler, Joseph Parslow, who remained in the family, a valued friend and servant, for forty years, and became, as Sir Joseph Hooker once remarked to me, "an integral part of the family, and felt to be such by all visitors at the house."
[110] Charles Darwin, Nature Series, 1882.
[111] To Sir John Herschel, May 24, 1837. Life of Sir Charles Lyell, vol. ii. p. 12.
[112] He wrote to Herbert:—"I have long discovered that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness, and that you do not form your opinions without undergoing labour of some kind. Geology is at present very oral, and what I here say is to a great extent quite true." And to Fitz-Roy, on the same subject, he wrote: "I have sent my South American Geology to Dover Street, and you will get it, no doubt, in the course of time. You do not know what you threaten when you propose to read it—it is purely geological. I said to my brother, 'You will of course read it,' and his answer was, 'Upon my life, I would sooner even buy it.'"
[113] The first edition was published in 1839, as vol. iii. of the Voyages of the 'Adventure' and 'Beagle.'
[114] No doubt proof-sheets.