562 LETTERS TO DARWIN AND OTHERS. [1868, 



May 25. 



I want to write you a long letter, but the time is not 

 to be had now. Many thanks for yours of May 8. 



My notice of your book in the " Nation " was not 

 intended to have anything in it, except for the 

 groundlings ; was only to make the book known and 

 understood, a light affair. 



My preface was written at the publishers' request 

 simply because yours had not come. The fellows put 

 in both. The edition is not very nicely printed. 

 Judging from the newspaper notices I think the book 

 is taking famously. That agricultural newspaper is 

 taken by the hundred thousand in the country. As 

 to close of my article, to match close of your book, 

 you see plainly I was put on the defense by your 

 reference to an old hazardous remark of mine. I 

 found your stone-house argument unanswerable in sub- 

 stance (for the notion of design must after all rest 

 mostly on faith, and on accumulation of adaptations, 

 etc.) ; so all I could do was to find a vulnerable spot 

 in the shaping of it, fire my little shot, and run away 

 in the smoke. 



Of course I understand your argument perfectly, 

 and feel the weight of it. 



We were intensely amused at the Edinburgh man, 

 who suggests that I could easily smash you into little 

 pieces ! I wish he may live to see it done ! 



I am half dead with drudgery, half of it at least 

 for other people ; see no relief but to break up, and 

 run over, with wife, who needs a change, to your side 

 of the water for a good long while. 



