Charles and Emma: Chapters 1–8

His voyage had lasted almost five years; he had been the naturalist on the HMS Beagle, a British surveying ship.

Religious zealots and religious dissenters were making noise while members of the Church of England and Unitarians like the Darwins also quietly questioned their faith.

But if he were to marry one of the Horner girls, or anyone else, he could see the obligations ahead, whereas if he remained single, he would be freer to pursue his science.

It wasn’t just the time and distraction that worried him; although he was frugal, he doubted he would ever make enough money by collecting beetles and writing about coral.

Looking at God’s wondrous handiwork was a worthwhile avocation, and in some cases, vocation.

Examining specimens he had collected, Charles was finding evidence that went against the prevailing concept of creation, which was that God had created all the species of birds, bees, and beetles at once and that there were no new ones since the first creation.

But when Charles and his shipmates first arrived in Tierra del Fuego, a group of natives perched on an overhang above the sea “sprang up, and waving their tattered cloaks sent forth a loud and sonorous shout.”

“My God, it is intolerable to think of spending one's whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all."

In only one area did he allow them some amount of leeway, and that was in religion.

Unitarians did not stand out in society as heretics, but the faith was easy to live with if you felt uncomfortable with a more serious, stricter branch of Christianity.

Much later he remembered that if he got to school on time, he attributed his success “to the prayers and not to my quick running, and marveled how generally I was aided.”

But science was not considered a valuable use of any young man’s time, and his headmaster admonished him for not paying more attention to his math or his Latin.

Even though Dr. Darwin was not a religious man himself, having a son who was in the church was not an anathema to him.

One day he was walking around Cambridge, foraging for beetles to study.

He wrote, “I should not think it would be in any degree disreputable to his character as a Clergyman."

I should on the contrary think the offer honourable to him; and the pursuit of Natural History, though certainly not professional, is very suitable to a clergyman.”

He wasn’t an atheist, but he had begun to reject God’s role in creation.

He also began to disbelieve the Old Testament idea of a wrathful God, a revengeful tyrant.

As his sisters Catherine and Caroline wrote Charles about her in 1826, “Fanny Owen has quite the preference to Sarah [her sister] among all the gentlemen, as she must have every where; there is something so very engaging and delightful about her.”

He continued, “Pray remember I consider myself invited to Maer, the next time I come down into the country—in fact, I think I have been so often that I have a kind of vested right, so see me you will, and we will have another goose.”

I ascribe much of Emma’s joyous nature to have been secured, if not caused, by Fanny’s yielding disposition; had the other met with a cross or an opposing sister there was every chance that with her ardent feelings, her temper had become irritable.

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress and vex her.

No doubt in hindsight Caroline wondered why they hadn’t sent for a doctor, perhaps their father.

For Emma it was a terrible, wrenching loss, and one that she had not anticipated at all.

"What exquisite happiness it will be to be with her again, to tell her how I loved her who has joined with me in almost every enjoyment of my life.”

Charles Darwin would later say looking back at his own childhood and at the great differences between him and his brother Erasmus, that he was inclined to agree with a cousin of his that “education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone, and that most of our qualities are innate.”

Even so, it is unquestionable that Fanny’s life and then her death affected Emma profoundly.

It cemented a faith in God and eternity that could have dwindled otherwise.

In the religious worldview, there was a hierarchy of living things, from the lowliest of the low, animals like lice or slugs, to fish and birds and cats and apes, up to human beings, who were at the top—but not as high up as angels.

Charles, like Emma, was a voracious reader, and as he read in a wide range of subjects, from philosophy and theology to history and political theory, he was reading with a purpose—to understand the natural world and, most specifically, the origin of species.

Had the birds been blown over from the coast of South America and then diverged as they lived and died.

Charles’s inkling was confirmed: Species were not stable.

He surmised that traits that are passed on change and adapt according to what is needed for survival.

His theory essentially eliminated God’s role in the process of creation.

He knew he was flirting with materialism, the philosophical doctrine that says that there are no spiritual or divine forces in nature, only matter.

This juxtaposition of his heart and mind gave him not only headaches but weird dreams.

Not to be deterred, he used himself as a specimen, just like Jenny, and made observations.

And yet Emma and Charles spent the whole day feeling rather miserable at the shock of their engagement; they were both astonished at the suddenness of their decision.

In Jane Austen’s novels there are star-crossed lovers who have impediments thrown in their way—by their parents, society, or their own doubts.