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The Cheyne Row Household.

In the Carlyle household the nephew was brought into touch with the leading spirits of the period of the later years of Carlyle's life, and he has many reminiscences of the happy and interesting gatherings in the Chelsea household. In the course of the conversation he recalled a visit of Charles Darwin and his wife, during which the talk was very gay and animated. There was a burst of laughter, and Darwin turned round to the nephew, who had been outside the circle at the moment, and asked if he knew what the laughter was about. They had been discussing the Origin of Species, and Carlyle asked the author, "Don't you think it much more likely that men descended to be monkeys than that monkeys ascended to be men?"

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