Little of importance happened during the early part of 1832. There was plenty of hard work in collecting facts, in consulting friends about special difficulties, and in working at the manuscript for the third volume of the "Principles," for the second made its appearance almost with the new year. Toil was sweetened by occasional pleasures, such as an evening with the Somervilles, or a dinner party at the Murchisons, a talk with Babbage or Fitton, or a symposium at the Geological Club, at which it is sometimes evident that good care was taken lest science should become too dry. One passage in his diary indicates that sixty years have considerably changed the habits of life in town and in the country, for at the present day most people would express themselves in the opposite sense. "I have enjoyed parties and two plays this month very much, because it was recreation stolen from work; but the difficulty in the country is that, on the contrary, one's hours of work are stolen from dissipation." The lectures at King's College were begun in May. Lyell evidently was not a nervous man, but he regarded the near approach of this new kind of work with some trepidation, and admits that he slept ill before the first lecture. It was, however, a decided success in every respect, and the audience was a large one, for the Council, after some hesitation, had permitted the attendance of ladies. Each lecture was pronounced by the hearers to be better than the last, and Lyell uses the opportunity, as he says, to fire occasional shots at Buckland, Sedgwick, and others who are still hankering after catastrophic convulsions and all-but universal deluges. As a further encouragement, his publisher, Murray, agrees willingly to a reprint of the first volume of the "Principles," and only hesitates between an edition of 750 or of 1,000 copies. About this time, also, he was asked to undertake the presidency of the Geological Society, but that, notwithstanding Murchison's urgency, he firmly declined for the present; writing of it to Miss Horner, "It is just one of those temptations the resisting of which decides whether a man shall really rise high or not in science. For two more years I am free from _les affaires administratives_, which, said old Brochart in his late letter to me, have prevented _me_ from studying geology _d'une manière suivie_, whereby _you_ have already carried it so far."