My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

—THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO 193responsibilit}^) that my essay, together with extractsfrom Darwin's MSS., which they had seen many yearsbefore, should be read before the Linnean Societyand pubh'shed in its "Journal." The joint paperswere read on July i, 1858, Dr. Hooker and SirCharles Lyell being present. After Darwin's deaththe former wrote a short account of this eventfor the "Life and Letters," in which he said: "Theinterest excited was intense,but the subject was toonovel and too ominous for the old school to enter thelists before armouring. After the meeting it wastalked over with bated breath : Lyell's approval, andperhaps in a small way mine, as his lieutenant in theaffair, rather overawed the Fellows, who would otherwisehave flown out against the doctrine " (" Life andLetters," ii. p. 126).Both Darwin and Dr. Hooker wrote to me in themost kind and courteous manner, informing me ofwhat had been done, of which they hoped I wouldapprove. Of course I not only approved, but feltthat they had given me more honour and creditthan I deserved, by putting my sudden intuitionhastily written and immediately sent off for theopinion of Darwin and Lyell—on the same levelwith the prolonged labours of Darwin, who hadreached the same point twenty years before me,and had worked continuously during that longperiod in order that he might be able to presentthe theory to the world with such a body of systematizedfacts and arguments as would almost compelconviction.In a later letter, Darwin wrote that he owed muchto me and his two friends, adding ": I almost thinkthat Lyell would have proved right, and that I shouldnever have completed my larger work." I think,O