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Letter from Charles Darwin to Charles Whitley, on the prospect of the Beagle voyage. Darwin writes: "I have sealed away about half a chance of life. - If one lived merely to see how long one could spin out life, -I should repent my choice. - As it is I do not." Charles Thomas Whitley (1808 - 1895) was a close school friend of Darwin at both Shrewsbury School and then Cambridge University. They corresponded frequently by letter until Darwin's voyage on the Beagle at which point their correspondence slowed and they drifted apart. Whitley was a mathematician and left Cambridge after graduating for an appointment at Durham University, then a newly established institution. In his later years he became Vicar of Bedlington in Northumberland, where he remained until his death in 1895. [From the collection of The Charles Darwin Trust, formerly kept at Cambridge University Library] |
