The Wallace-Darwin Correspondence 



If you send it to me could you let me have all your 

 MSS. copied out, as it adds considerably to the time re- 

 quired if there is any difficulty in deciphering the writing, 

 which in yours (as you are no doubt aware) there often is. 



My hasty note to Bates was not intended to be shown 

 you or anyone. I thought he had heard of it from Mur- 

 ray, and that the arrangement was to be made by Murray. 

 — Believe me yours very faithfully, 



Alfred E. Wallace. 



P.S.— I have been delighted with H. Spencer's '' Study 

 of Sociology. '' Some of the passages in the latter part 

 are grand. You have perhaps seen that I am dipping into 

 politics myself occasionally. — A. R. W. 



Down, Beckenham, Kent; November 19, 1873. 



Dear Wallace, — I thank you for your extremely kind 

 letter, and I am sorry that I troubled you with that of 

 yesterday. My wife thinks that my son George would be 

 so much pleased at undertaking the work for nie, that I 

 will write to him, and so probably shall have no occasion 

 to trouble you. If on still further reflection, and after 

 looking over my notes, I think that my son could not do 

 the work, I will write again and gratefully accept your 

 proposal. But if you do not hear, you will understand 

 that I can manage the affair myself. I never in my life- 

 time regretted an interruption so much as this new edition 

 of the '^ Descent.'^ I am deeply immersed in some work 

 on physiological points with plants. 



I fully agree with what you say about H. Spencer's 

 ^^ Sociology " ; I do not believe there is a man in Europe 

 at all his equal in talents. I did not know that you had 

 been writing on politics, except so far as your letter on 

 the coal question, which interested me much and struck 

 me as a capital letter. 



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