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359 Charles Darwin

[To ?   24 June [1877]]

A.L.s., 3 pages, 8vo, Bassett, Southampton, "June 24th", advising his correspondent on the adoption of a career; "... each person shd. follow his natural bent & improve his special abilities"; he strongly recommends study of J. S. Mill's Logic, stresses that his own zeal for science was most stimulated by Herschel's Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy, and adds that he fears literature and science are "poor lines as a profession".

362 Charles Darwin

[To F. W. Surman, 22 December 1881]

Two A.Ls.s., 3 pages, 8vo, Down, 19-22 December 1881, to F. W. Surman (secretary to his late brother Erasmus Darwin), asking him for personal details to enable him to support Surman's application for an appointment; telling him (in the second letter) that "your case is hopeless", because Dr. Günther (the zoologist) has told him about an age limit, and because Darwin himself has "no influence whatever on the Archbishop, the Chancellor & Speaker", and consoling him with the fact that there are many applicants

The lot includes two A.Ls.s. by the scientist Sir George Howard Darwin (son of Charles Darwin), to F. W. Surman, sending him a generous bequest, as well as £50 "which my father wishes to give you as a present", and offering the family's help, 3 1/2 pages, 8vo, Trinity College, Cambridge, 6-8 December 1881.

363 Charles Darwin

[To Frederick Smith, 19 June [1861]]

A.L.s., 2 1/2 pages, 8vo, Down, "June 19th Wednesday", to a naturalist, declaring that the pollen-masses in question certainly belong to a British orchid, and specifying its botanical group with equal certainty, remarking "It would be worth knowing whether the Bee was caught very far from a hothouse", and doubting whether a pollen-wasp is involved (" . . . else I shd. so much like to see it"), and making suggestions for investigation