rather hate the idea of writing for priority, yet I certainly should be vexed if any one were to publish my doctrines before me. Anyhow, I thank you heartily for your sympathy. I shall be in London next week, and I will call on you on Thursday morning for one hour precisely, so as not to lose much of your time and my own; but will you let me this time come as early as 9 o'clock, for I have much which I must do in the morning in my strongest time? Farewell, my dear old patron.
Yours, C. DARWIN.
By the way, THREE plants have come up out of the earth, perfectly enclosed in the roots of the trees. And twenty-nine plants in the table-spoonful of mud, out of the little pond; Hooker was surprised at this, and struck with it, when I showed him how much mud I had scraped off one duck's feet.
If I did publish a short sketch, where on earth should I publish it?
If I do NOT hear, I shall understand that I may come from 9 to 10 on Thursday.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. May 9th, [1856].
...I very much want advice and TRUTHFUL consolation if you can give it. I had a good talk with Lyell about my species work, and he urges me strongly to publish something. I am fixed against any periodical or Journal, as I positively will NOT expose myself to an Editor or a Council, allowing a publication for which they might be abused. If I publish anything it must be a VERY THIN and little volume, giving a sketch of my views and difficulties; but it is really dreadfully unphilosophical to give a resume, without exact references, of an unpublished work. But Lyell seemed to think I might do this, at the suggestion of friends, and on the ground, which I might state, that I had been at work for eighteen (The interval of eighteen years, from 1837