328 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



going to reproduce your lecture there. I am immensely 

 indebted to you for all the trouble you are taking to rectify 

 current misconceptions; and, what with your lecture, and 

 this republication with its sundry improvements, and the 

 publication of the volume, you will do it very effectually. 



NEW YORK, November 24, 1874. 



MY DEAR SPENCER : I. have yours of October 8th, re- 

 garding the lecture in the Monthly. I see many indica- 

 tions that it is doing pretty effectual work. It seems to 

 have gone counter to current opinions regarding yourself 

 and Darwin much more strongly than I was prepared for. 

 I have had many letters and messages acknowledging in- 

 debtedness for its statements. On the whole, it was an 

 excellent job, though it has taken a prodigious long time. 

 Mr. Emerson is amusing. He protests that he has been 

 quite misunderstood, and never applied the term "stock 

 writer " to Mr. Spencer in any disparaging sense. 



38 QUEEN'S GARDENS, BAYSWATER, LONDON, January 29, 1875. 



MY DEAR YOUMANS: I was glad to get your letter of 

 the i3th. I think you are running a great risk with your 

 eyes in using them before they are quite strong again. 

 You had much better postpone your Chemistry and take 

 your rest first. It is this endeavour just to finish some- 

 thing in hand before leaving off that is the cause of nearly 

 every breakdown. I have seen it so in myself and in all 

 around me. Pray take warning. Instead of the common 

 attitude, This business must be done even at the cost of 

 health, the attitude should be, My body must be attended 

 to even at the cost of business. 



NEW YORK, April j, 1873. 



MY DEAR SPENCER : You are making very clean work 

 with this matter of Origin of Religion, but in certain re- 

 spects the cleaner the worse. There is great irritability in 





