Death itself to the reflecting mind is less serious than marriage. The elder plant is cut down that the younger may have room to flourish; a few tears drop into the loosened soil, and buds and blossoms spring over it. Death is not a blow, is not even a pulsation; it is a pause. But marriage unrolls the awful lot of numberless generations. Health, genius, honour are the words inscribed on some; on others are disease, fatuity, and infamy.—Walter Savage Landor.

The great leading idea is quite new to me, viz., that during late ages the mind will have been modified more than the body; yet I had not got as far as to see with you, that the struggle between the races of man depended entirely on intellectual and moral qualities.—Darwin: Letter to A.R. Wallace.