...I cannot help a little doubting whether Lyell would take much pains to induce Murray to publish my book; this was not done at my request, and it rather grates against my pride.
I know that Lyell has been INFINITELY kind about my affair, but your dashed (i.e., underlined) "INDUCE" gives the idea that Lyell had unfairly urged Murray.
CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. April 4th [1859].
...You ask to see my sheets as printed off; I assure you that it will be the HIGHEST satisfaction to me to do so: I look at the request as a high compliment. I shall not, you may depend, forget a request which I look at as a favour. But (and it is a heavy "but" to me) it will be long before I go to press; I can truly say I am NEVER idle; indeed, I work too hard for my much weakened health; yet I can do only three hours of work daily, and I cannot at all see when I shall have finished: I have done eleven long chapters, but I have got some other very difficult ones: as palaeontology, classifications, and embryology, etc., and I have to correct and add largely to all those done. I find, alas! each chapter takes me on an average three months, so slow I am. There is no end to the necessary digressions. I have just finished a chapter on Instinct, and here I found grappling with such a subject as bees' cells, and comparing all my notes made during twenty years, took up a despairing length of time.
But I am running on about myself in a most egotistical style. Yet I must just say how useful I have again and again found your letters, which I have lately been looking over and quoting! but you need not fear that I shall quote anything you would dislike, for I try to be very cautious on this head. I most heartily hope you may succeed in getting your "incubus" of old work off your hands, and be in some degree a free man...
Again let me say that I do indeed feel grateful to you...
CHARLES DARWIN TO J. MURRAY. Down, April 5th [1859].
My dear Sir,
I send by this post, the Title (with some remarks on a separate page), and the first three chapters. If you have patience to read all Chapter I., I honestly think you will have a fair notion of the interest of the whole book. It may be conceit, but I believe the subject will interest the public, and I am sure that the views are original. If you think otherwise, I must repeat my request that you will freely reject my work; and though I shall be a little disappointed, I shall be in no way injured.
If you choose to read Chapters II. and III., you will have a dull and rather abstruse chapter, and a plain and interesting one, in my opinion.