To Leslie Stephen 11 January 1881
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)
Jan 11 1881
Dear Leslie Stephen.—
It has suddenly occurred to me that you might possibly like to place the Life of Erasmus Darwin in your Library, so I have told Murray to send you a copy.—1
I fear that you will have groaned over my daughter, Henrietta’s, long letter, & will have thought the whole lot of us the most unreasonable of human beings.2 The sole excuse which I can offer is that I shall value your verdict most highly & act on it implicitly. What you said to my daughter at some dinner-party consoled me much, for it is difficult to avoid being pained at being publicly called in ones old age a liar, owing to having unintentionally made a small omission, which omission, as far as I can see, makes no difference to Mr. Butler or anyone else.3 Hoping for your forgiveness & begging you not to add to your trouble by acknowledging this note, I remain
Yours sincerely & obliged | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Butler, Samuel. 1879. Evolution, old and new: or, the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, as compared with that of Mr. Charles Darwin. London: Hardwicke and Bogue.
Butler, Samuel. 1880. Unconscious memory: a comparison between the theory of Dr. Ewald Hering, … and the ‘Philosophy of the unconscious’ of Dr. Edward von Hartmann. London: David Bogue.
Erasmus Darwin. By Ernst Krause. Translated from the German by W. S. Dallas, with a preliminary notice by Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1879.
Krause, Ernst. 1879a. Erasmus Darwin, der Großvater und Vorkämpfer Charles Darwin’s: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Descendenz-Theorie. Kosmos 4 (1878–9): 397–424.
Summary
Discusses allegation [about Erasmus Darwin] made by Samuel Butler. Will value LS’s verdict highly.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-13005
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Leslie Stephen
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature (MSS Stephen)
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13005,” accessed on 31 August 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13005.xml