Consider the nose to be a flower to be fertilised, and then you will make out all about it. (Dr. Ogle had corresponded with my father on his own observations on the fertilisation of flowers.) I have had to allude to your paper on 'Sense of Smell' (Medico-chirurg. Trans. liii.); is the paging right, namely, 1, 2, 3? If not, I protest by all the gods against the plan followed by some, of having presentation copies falsely paged; and so does Rolleston, as he wrote to me the other day. In haste.
Yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO W. OGLE. Down, March 25 [1871].
My dear Dr. Ogle,
You will think me a horrid bore, but I beg you, IN RELATION TO A NEW POINT FOR OBSERVATION, to imagine as well as you can that you suddenly come across some dreadful object, and act with a sudden little start, a SHUDDER OF HORROR; please do this once or twice, and observe yourself as well as you can, and AFTERWARDS read the rest of this note, which I have consequently pinned down. I find, to my surprise, whenever I act thus my platysma contracts. Does yours? (N.B.--See what a man will do for science; I began this note with a horrid fib, namely, that I want you to attend to a new point. (The point was doubtless described as a new one, to avoid the possibility of Dr. Ogle's attention being directed to the platysma, a muscle which had been the subject of discussion in other letters.)) I will try and get some persons thus to act who are so lucky as not to know that they even possess this muscle, so troublesome for any one making out about expression. Is a shudder akin to the rigor or shivering before fever? If so, perhaps the platysma could be observed in such cases. Paget told me that he had attended much to shivering, and had written in MS. on the subject, and been much perplexed about it. He mentioned that passing a catheter often causes shivering. Perhaps I will write to him about the platysma. He is always most kind in aiding me in all ways, but he is so overworked that it hurts my conscience to trouble him, for I have a conscience, little as you have reason to think so. Help me if you can, and forgive me. Your murderer case has come in splendidly as the acme of prostration from fear.
Yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO DR. OGLE. Down, April 29 [1871].
My dear Dr. Ogle,
I am truly obliged for all the great trouble which you have so kindly taken. I am sure you have no cause to say that you are sorry you can give me no definite information, for you have given me far more than I ever expected to get. The action of the platysma is not very important for me, but I believe that you will fully understand (for I have always fancied that our minds were very similar) the intolerable desire I had not to be utterly baffled. Now I know that it sometimes contracts from fear and from shuddering, but not apparently from a prolonged state of fear such as the insane suffer...
[Mr. Mivart's 'Genesis of Species,'--a contribution to the literature of Evolution, which excited much attention--was published in 1871, before the appearance of the 'Descent of Man.' To this book the following letter (June 21, 1871) from the late Chauncey Wright to my father refers. (Chauncey Wright was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, September 20, 1830, and came of a family settled in that town since 1654. He became in 1852 a computer in the Nautical Almanac office at Cambridge, Mass., and lived a quiet uneventful life, supported by the small stipend of his office, and by what he earned from his occasional articles, as well as by a little teaching. He thought and read much on metaphysical subjects, but on the whole with an outcome (as far as the world was concerned) not commensurate to the power of his mind. He seems to have been a man of strong individuality, and to have made a lasting impression on his friends. He died in September, 1875.)]:
"I send...revised proofs of an article which will be published in the July number of the 'North American Review,' sending it in the hope that it will interest or even be of greater value to you.