i860.] dr. gray's approval. 269 



I doubt if I shall please you altogether. I know I shall 

 not please Agassiz at all. I hear another reprint is in the 

 Press, and the book will excite much attention here, and 

 some controversy. . . . 



C. Darwin to Asa Gray. 



Down, January 28th [i860]. 



My DEAR Gray, Hooker has forwarded to me your letter 

 to him ; and I cannot express how deeply it has gratified 

 me. To receive the approval of a man whom one has long 

 sincerely respected, and whose judgment and knowledge are 

 most universally admitted, is the highest reward an author 

 can possibly wish for ; and I thank you heartily for your 

 most kind expressions. 



I have been absent from home for a few days, and so could 

 not earlier answer your letter to me of the 10th of January. 

 You have been extremely kind to take so much trouble and 

 interest about the edition. It has been a mistake of my 

 publisher not thinking of sending over the sheets. I had 

 entirely and utterly forgotten your offer of receiving the 

 sheets as printed off. But I must not blame my publisher, 

 for had I remembered your most kind offer I feel pretty sure 

 I should not have taken advantage of it ; for I never dreamed 

 of my book being so successful with general readers : I believe 

 I should have laughed at the idea of sending the sheets to 

 America.* 



After much consideration, and on the strong advice of Lyell 

 and others, I have resolved to have the present book as it is 

 (excepting correcting errors, or here and there inserting short 



* In a letter to Mr. Murray, 1 S60, but yet in such terms that it is in fact 



my father wrote : " I am amused a fine advertisement ! " This seems 



by Asa Gray's account of the excite- to refer to a lecture given before 



ment my book has made amongst the Mercantile Library Associa- 



naturalists in the U. States. Agassiz tion. 

 has denounced it in a newspaper, 



