March 5, 1852

I told you I was very busy, and I must tell you what I am about and you will believe me.  I have just finished a Memoir for the Royal Society ["On the Morphology of the Cephalous Mollusca” “Scientific Memoirs” volume 1 page 152.], which has taken me a world of time, thought, and reading, and is, perhaps, the best thing I have done yet.  It will not be read till May, and I do not know whether they will print it or not afterwards; that will require care and a little manoeuvring on my part.  You have no notion of the intrigues that go on in this blessed world of science.  Science is, I fear, no purer than any other region of human activity; though it should be.  Merit alone is very little good; it must be backed by tact and knowledge of the world to do very much.

For instance, I know that the paper I have just sent in is very original and of some importance, and I am equally sure that if it is referred to the judgment of my “particular friend” —­ that it will not be published.  He won’t be able to say a word against it, but he will pooh-pooh it to a dead certainty.

You will ask with some wonderment, Why?  Because for the last twenty years —­ has been regarded as the great authority on these matters, and has had no one to tread on his heels, until at last, I think, he has come to look upon the Natural World as his special preserve, and “no poachers allowed.”  So I must manoeuvre a little to get my poor memoir kept out of his hands.

The necessity for these little stratagems utterly disgusts me.  I would so willingly reverence and trust any man of high standing and ability.  I am so utterly unable to comprehend this petty greediness.  And yet withal you will smile at my perversity.  I have a certain pleasure in overcoming these obstacles, and fighting these folks with their own weapons.  I do so long to be able to trust men implicitly.  I have such a horror of all this literary pettifogging.  I could be so content myself, if the necessity of making a position would allow it, to work on anonymously, but —­ I see is determined not to let either me or any one else rise if he can help it.  Let him beware.  On my own subjects I am his master, and am quite ready to fight half a dozen dragons.  And although he has a bitter pen, I flatter myself that on occasions I can match him in that department also.

But I was telling you how busy I am.  I am getting a memoir ready for the Zoological Society, and working at my lecture for the Royal Institution, which I want to make striking and original, as it is a good opportunity, besides doing a translation now and then for one of the Journals.  Besides this, I am working at the British Museum to make a catalogue of some creatures there.  All these things take a world of time and labour; and yield next to no direct profit; but they bring me into contact with all sorts of men, in a very independent position, and I am told, and indeed hope, that something must arise from it.  So fair a prospect opens out before me if I can only wait.  I am beginning to know what work means, and see how much more may be done by steady, unceasing, and well-directed efforts.  I thrive upon it too.  I am as well as ever I was in my life, and the more I work the better my temper seems to be.