That and Darwin's obituary are the chief subjects of my meditations when I wake in the night. But I do not get much "forrarder," and I am afraid I shall not until I get back to London.
Bournemouth, February 14, 1888.
My dear Foster,
No doubt the Treasury will jump at any proposition which relieves them from further expense—but I cannot say I like the notion of leaving some of the most important results of the "Challenger" voyage to be published elsewhere than in the official record….
Evans made a deft allusion to Spirula, like a powder between two dabs of jam. At present I have no moral sense, but it may awake as the days get longer.
I have been reading the "Origin" slowly again for the nth time, with the view of picking out the essentials of the argument, for the obituary notice. Nothing entertains me more than to hear people call it easy reading.
Exposition was not Darwin's forte—and his English is sometimes wonderful. But there is a marvellous dumb sagacity about him—like that of a sort of miraculous dog—and he gets to the truth by ways as dark as those of the Heathen Chinee.
I am getting quite sick of all the "paper philosophers," as old Galileo called them, who are trying to stand upon Darwin's shoulders and look bigger than he, when in point of real knowledge they are not fit to black his shoes. It is just as well I am collapsed or I believe I should break out with a final "Fur Darwin."
I will think of you when I get as far as the fossils. At present I am poking over P. sylvestris and P. pinnata in the intervals of weariness.
My wife joins with me in love to you both.