way to
arrive at any better terms. It will be years before I publish, so that
I shall have plenty of time to think of better words. Development would
perhaps do, only it is applied to the changes of an individual during
its growth. I am, however, very glad of your remark, and will ponder
over it.

We are all well, wife and children three, and as flourishing as this
horrid, house-confining, tempestuous weather permits.

LETTER 18. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down [1845].

I hope you are getting on well with your lectures, and that you have
enjoyed some pleasant walks during the late delightful weather. I write
to tell you (as perhaps you might have had fears on the subject) that
your books have arrived safely. I am exceedingly obliged to you for
them, and will take great care of them; they will take me some time to
read carefully.

I send to-day the corrected MS. of the first number of my "Journal"
(18/1. In 1842 he had written to his sister: "Talking of money, I reaped
the other day all the profit which I shall ever get from my "Journal"
["Journal of Researches, etc."] which consisted in paying Mr. Colburn
21 pounds 10 shillings for the copies which I presented to different
people; 1,337 copies have been sold. This is a comfortable arrangement,
is it not?" He was proved wrong in his gloomy prophecy, as the second
edition was published by Mr. Murray in 1845.) in the Colonial Library,
so that if you chance to know of any gross mistake in the first 214
pages (if you have my "Journal"), I should be obliged to you to tell me.

Do not answer this for form's sake; for you must be very busy. We have
just had the Lyells here, and you ought to have a wife to stop your
working too much, as Mrs. Lyell peremptorily stops Lyell.

LETTER 19. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(19/1. Sir J.D. Hooker's letters to Mr. Darwin seem to fix the date as
1845, while the reference to Forbes' paper indicates 1846.)

Down [1845-1846].

I am particularly obliged for your facts about solitary islands having
several species of peculiar genera; it knocks on the head some analogies
of mine; the point stupidly never occurred to me to ask about. I am
amused at your anathemas against variation and co.; whatever you may be
pleased to say, you will never be content with simple species, "as they
are." I defy you to steel your mind to technicalities, like so many of
our brother naturalists. I am much pleased that I thought of sending
you Forbes' article. (19/2. E. Forbes'