To Miss Sara Sedgwick, at Cambridge.

London, Sept. 5, 1872.

I am not unmindful, as you will see, of my promise, —made a long time ago, as it now seems, and in the expectation of a very long letter in return, — to write you after seeing Mr. Darwin. It was some time after getting to these islands before I came to London. I turned tourist soon after landing in Ireland, and travelled with a party of Boston friends (who had a carefully matured scheme of travel), with whom I fell in on the very pleasant voyage we had in the “Olympus.” We went through Ireland, leaving my first companion, Professor Langdell, to rusticate there, and across to Chester and Liverpool, and thence by the English lakes and the west coast of Scotland and the Scottish lakes, and through many interesting towns and cities, and by lots of monuments, ruins, and other antiquities, — all in the rapid way of the tourist, which for once I wished to try; and, as I am not doomed to do all Europe in that way, I am very well satisfied with this trial. The panorama is only vaguely impressed on my memory; but future recollections will doubtless serve to develop it

into a more vivid picture than I now have or could sketch for you.

When I got to London, and parted with my tourists, a reaction, — or, I should say rather, an inaction, — came on, which, together with the inexhaustible interests of this town and its neighborhood, has kept me here a long time. But there has been so much of Boston here, so many of the best of our neighbors, that I have been very little alone, or at least have had but little feeling of loneliness, in my hearty enjoyment of the many interests which London has had for me. Many an odd or unexpected meeting with American friends has made the imagination familiar or not improbable, that I have only to walk a little way, or to call at some principal hotel, to be surer of meeting some Bostonian I know than I should in Boston itself. Thus, I met Mr. John Holmes one day on the Strand, and afterwards saw a little of him before he went to the continent. This was like meeting Cambridge itself. The last week, I spent several hours every day with Mr. Rowse, whom I luckily met in like manner when neighbors were beginning to be rare. We had many agreeable hours together. Such adventures and interests, together with my laziness, have kept me from seeking out friends belonging here; and so it was only yesterday that I made the little visit to the Darwins, from which I have just returned. A resolution to go to Paris near the end of this week, made with the help of Mr. Rowse, who went last Sunday, prevented my putting off the visit a little longer, so as to meet Mr. George Darwin, who is gone this week on a journey; and who was also absent in travels on the continent when I called at his rooms in London about a month ago. But the pleasure of meeting him again, though it would have added much to the satisfaction of my visit, seems little compared to the all but perfect good time I have had in the last few hours.

If you can imagine me enthusiastic, — absolutely and unqualifiedly so, without a but or criticism, — then think of my last evening’s and this morning’s talks with Mr. Darwin as realizing that beatific condition. Mr. Horace Darwin (whom I like very much, and mean to visit at his college in Cambridge before I sail for home) was at home; and I had several hours of pleasant discussion on various subjects with him, while his father was taking the rests he always needs after talking awhile. Who would not need rest after exercising such powers of wise, suggestive, and apt observation and criticism, with judgments so painstaking and conscientiously accurate, — unless, indeed, he should be sustained by an Olympian diet? I was never so waked up in my life, and did not sleep many hours under the hospitable roof. This morning, as the day was very bright, I walked through charming fields and groves to the railway station, most of the way with my younger host.

It would be quite impossible to give by way of report any idea of these talks before and at and after dinner, at breakfast, and at leave-taking; and yet I dislike the egotism of “testifying,” like other religious enthusiasts, without any verification, or hint of similar experience; though what I have said must be to you a confirmation of what you already know. One point I may mention, however, of our final talk. I am some time to write an essay on matters covering the ground of certain common interests and studies, and in review of his “Descent of Man,” and other related books, for which the learned title is adopted of Psychozoölogy,—as a substitute for “Animal Psychology,” “Instinct,” and the like titles, — in order to give the requisite subordination (from our point of view) of consciousness in men and animals, to their development and general relations to nature. So, if you ever see that learned word in print, you will know better than other readers when and where it was born! But you will not, I

imagine, care so much about the matter of the conversation, which might be repeated, as about its incommunicable manner and spirit, which you will readily supply from your own imagination.

I also found Mrs. Darwin and her daughter very agreeable; and I repent now, as I have regretted all along, that indolence has kept me so many weeks from making acquaintance with so charming a household. ... I had some idea of seeking out Professor Huxley, as well as Mr. Galton, Sir John Lubbock, and other fellow-disciples; but, not being in season to find them in London, or at home, I have yielded to the suggestions of indolence, and given up the project, at least for the present. . . .

This is the first letter that I have written home, having agreed with those friends who had any reason to expect such an effort from me that I would not do it, unless something more interesting or urgent than could be found in guidebooks should warrant it. . . .