A Note from Darwin

In 1855, Darwin wrote to William Darwin Fox:
"I am rather low today about all my experiments,—everything has been going wrong—the fan-tails have picked the feathers out of the Pouters in their Journey home—the fish at the Zoological Gardens after eating seeds would spit them all out again—Seeds will sink in salt-water—all nature is perverse & will not do as I wish it, & just at present I wish I had the old Barnacles to work at & nothing new."
It was just a bad day. 23 years later - on this day - in 1878, he wrote to Thomas Henry Farrer, 1st Baron Farrer:
"At present, I care for nothing in this wide world except the biology of seedling plants."