ch. xv.] HONOURS. 311 



Abinger Hall, Dorking, Sunday, April 11, 1880. 



My dear Huxley, I wished much to attend your 

 Lecture, but I have had a bad cough, and we have come 

 here to see whether a change would do me good, as it has 

 done. What a magnificent success your lecture seems to 

 have been, as I judge from the reports in the Standard and 

 Daily Xeics, and more especially from the accounts given 

 me by three of my children. I suppose that you have not 

 written out your lecture, so I fear there is no chance of its 

 being printed in extenso. You appear to have piled, as on 

 so many other occasions, honours high and thick on my old 

 head. But I well know how great a part you have played 

 in establishing and spreading the belief in the descent- 

 theory, ever since that grand review in the Times and the 

 battle royal at Oxford up to the present day. 



Ever, my dear Huxley, 



Yours sincerely and gratefully, 



Charles Darwin. 



P. S. It was absurdly stupid in me, but I had read the 

 announcement of your Lecture, and thought that you 

 meant the maturity of the subject, until my wife one day 

 remarked, " it is almost twenty-one years since the Origin 

 appeared," and then for the first time the meaning of your 

 words flashed on me. 



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