Darwin's First Theory by Rob Wesson

Author:Rob Wesson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2017-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

As Darwin toiled to finish his paper on the Parallel Roads, another important issue was on his mind: marriage.

Darwin, since taking up residence in London, had become an attractive and eligible bachelor. His friends from the Geological Society, Lyell and Leonard Horner, both took an interest in his availability. Horner’s oldest daughter, Mary, was Lyell’s wife, but he still had five unmarried daughters at home. Any of the eldest three of these would have been a desirable match for Darwin. He was a frequent guest in the Horners’ home and enjoyed the attention of the talented, extremely well-educated, and intellectually stimulating Horner girls. In one note thanking him for a book on botany, they concluded with an invitation to come by the following Friday, adding in Maori, “Ki te kahore hoki he mahi” [if you have nothing else to do]. Darwin’s brother, Erasmus, took to teasing Charles about Mrs. Horner being his mother-in-law. His sisters were atwitter.

Darwin, for his part, was feeling the need for a wife. He was working too hard, overwrought, and troubled by his declining health. “As for a wife,” he wrote to a friend, “that most interesting specimen in the whole series of vertebrate animals, Providence only know[s] whether I shall ever capture one or be able to feed her if caught. . . . at the end of a distant view, I sometimes see a cottage & some white object like a petticoat, which always drives granite & trap out of my head in the most unphilosophical manner.”

Over the spring and summer, and perhaps most intensely during his visit to Shrewsbury on his return from Scotland, he repeatedly evaluated the pros and cons of marriage. He made one list on the back of a note from a prospective father-in-law, Leonard Horner. On the negative side, if he did not marry, he would be free to make geological trips to Europe and even North America. He was initially worried about money, but it gradually dawned on him—perhaps encouraged by a talk with his father—that owing to his father’s wealth, money would not be an overwhelming concern. He also fretted about how he would maintain an intellectually vigorous existence after marriage, and whether he would be better off in London, or in the countryside. He’d observed Lyell’s family life in London and noted, “I have so much more pleasure in direct observation, that I could not go on as Lyell does, correcting & adding up new information to old train,” continually revising his books.

Finally, under the headings “Marry” and “Not Marry,” he summarized the arguments. On the winning side he wrote:

My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all.—No, no won’t do.—Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House.—Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps—Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St. Marry—Marry—Marry Q.E.D.

In the end his attentions turned to a woman whom he had known his whole life, his cousin, Emma Wedgwood.

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