Using an elegant fountain pen, the 5th Earl of Cranbrook, Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, notated dozens of copies of Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russell Wallace in his capacity as author of the preface. Earlier, he had introduced the audience of mangrove kings and crabby lords at the Singapore Science Centre to the lesser known of the two fathers of the theory of evolution, who made his deductions half a world away from Darwin as he scoured the Malay Archipelago for birds, beetles, butterflies and thousands of other bewildering creatures whose diversity bred in Wallace an inordinate fondness for biogeography.
The son of an impoverished lawyer who earned his way through school by teaching younger boys, Wallace's love for the land (and the labour movement) was probably sparked by a brief venture into surveying after his father's death. A serendipitous friendship with Beetle Batey diverted him towards an earnest and extended exploration of life on earth (including of all things, monkeys) before a detour in his later years to study life beyond. It's likely, though, that Wallace would have not too fond of the good Earl, given the latter's class whom Wallace regarded as exploitative rent-seekers and whose land he would have gladly reformed to spread the wealth. A more charitable stance might have been possible, however, if Wallace could have learnt of the Earl's efforts to trace his footsteps and chart further inroads into the trees of life and the dwindling magic of Malaya's men of the jungle. What does status matter if two share the same spirit?
Comments