Alfred Russel Wallace 



With best wishes and many thanks for the trouble you 

 are taking on my behalf, believe me yours very faithfully, 



Alfred R. Wallace. 



In 1902 the Standard announced that the degree of 

 D.C.L. was to be conferred upon him by the University of 

 Wales. He wrote to Miss Dora Best, who had sent him the 

 information : 



I have not seen the Standard, But I suppose it is about 

 the offer of a degree by the University of Wales. You will 

 not be surprised to hear that I have declined it " with 

 thanks." The bother, the ceremony, the having perhaps to 

 get a blue or yellow or scarlet gown ! and at all events new 

 black clothes and a new topper! such as I have not worn 

 this twenty years. Luckily I had a good excuse in having 

 committed the same offence before. Some ten years back 

 I declined the offer of a degree from Cambridge, so that 

 settled it. 



P.S. — Having already degrees two — LL.D. (Dublin) and 

 D.C.L. (Oxford) — I might have quoted Shakespeare : "To 

 gild refined gold, to paint the lilv," etc. But I didn't! — 

 A. R. W. 



In 1908 he received the Order of Merit, the highest honour 

 conferred upon him. To his friend Mrs. Fisher he wrote : 



Dear Mrs. Fisher, — Is it not awful — two more now! I 

 should think very few men have had three such honours 

 within six months! I have never felt myself worthy of 

 the Copley Medal — and as to the Order of Merit — to be 

 given to a red-hot Radical, Land Nationaliser, Socialist, 

 Anti- Militarist, etc. etc. etc., is quite astounding and un- 

 intelligible! . . . 



There is another thing you have not heard yet, but it 

 will be announced soon. Sir W. Crookes, as Secretary of 

 the Royal Institution, wrote to me two weeks back asking 

 me very strongly to give them a lecture at their opening 

 meeting (third week in January) appropriate to the Jubilee 

 of the " Origin of Species." I was very unwell at the time 



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