The same year that Charles Darwin published his controversial book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), another English writer, Charles Dickens, published A Tale of Two Cities with the opening lines, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Though Dickens was referring to the era of the French Revolution, the sentiment of the statement also applies to the time in whichDarwin lived and a hundred years after his death when Schnackenberg wrote this poem about him. DuringDarwin's lifetime, wars throughout the world were as common as they are today. His life spanned much of the 1800s, and during that century, Britain went to war with France in Spain and Portugal; countries in the Middle East and Far East waged battles, including Singapore, Persia, and China; India was the setting of numerous conflicts; and the young United States...