Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Theodore Baird

Critical Essay by Theodore Baird

SOURCE: "Darwin and the Tangled Bank," in American Scholar, Vol. 15, No. 4, Autumn, 1946, pp. 477-86.

In the following essay, Baird comments on Darwin's use of metaphorical language in describing his responses to nature.

Details of the scene can be filled in. They were both very great men. Carlyle was eighty. On his latest birthday he had been much honored. From Prussia came a decoration—"The Star . . . is really very pretty . . . hung with a black ribbon, with silver edges. . . . Had they sent me a 1/4 lb. of good Tobacco the addition to my happiness had probably been . . . greater!" From America and Harvard came an honorary LL.D., and Disraeli, beginning his letter, "A Government should recognize intellect," offered him the Grand Cross of the Bath.

Darwin was sixty-six, and the Origin had been published for sixteen years. At home...
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