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From T. H. Huxley   25 February 1863

Jermyn St

Feby 25th 1863

My dear Darwin

Please to say to Miss Henrietta Minor Rhadamanthus Darwin that I plead guilty to the justice of both criticisms & throw myself on the mercy of the Court1

As extenuating circumstances with respect to indictment No. 1. see prefatory notice.2

Extenuating circumstance No 2: that I picked up ‘Atavism’ in Pritchard years ago—and as it is a much more convenient word than ‘Hereditary transmission of variations’ it slipped into equivalence in my mind—and I forgot all about the original limitation3

But if these excuses should in your judgment tend to aggravate my offences suppress ’em, like a friend.

One may always hope more from a lady’s tenderheartedness than from her sense of justice

Publisher has just sent to say that I must give him any corrections for second thousand of my booklet immediately—4

Why did not Miss Etty send any critical remarks on that subject by the same post? I should be most immensely obliged for them

Ever | Yours faithy | T. H. Huxley

Footnotes

1
See letter to T. H. Huxley, [before 25 February 1863]. The reference is to Henrietta (Etty) Emma Darwin. ‘Rhadamanthus’ is a character from Greek mythology: a son of Zeus and Europa and one of the judges in the lower world. The term is used allusively to denote an ‘inflexible judge; a rigorous or severe master’ (OED).
2
At Huxley’s request, Robert Hardwicke, the publisher of Huxley’s 1862 lectures to working men (T. H. Huxley 1863a), included a prefatory notice by Huxley explaining that while he had given Hardwicke’s shorthand writer, J. Aldous Mays, permission to take lecture-notes with a view to publishing them, he had had ‘no leisure to revise the Lectures, or to make alterations in them, beyond the correction of any important error in a matter of fact’.
3
The reference has not been identified.
4
Huxley’s Evidence as to man’s place in nature (T. H. Huxley 1863b), was first published on 20 February 1863 by the London publishers Williams & Norgate; it sold quickly and a second printing was called for almost immediately. The publishers launched the second printing on 21 March 1863 (Publishers’ Circular, 16 February 1863, p. 85, and 1 April 1863, p. 181; see also L. Huxley ed. 1900, 1: 201–2). CD sent his comments on T. H. Huxley 1863b in his letter to Huxley of 26 [February 1863].

Bibliography

OED: The Oxford English dictionary. Being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of a new English dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, et al. 12 vols. and supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1970. A supplement to the Oxford English dictionary. 4 vols. Edited by R. W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972–86. The Oxford English dictionary. 2d edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Oxford English dictionary additional series. 3 vols. Edited by John Simpson et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993–7.

Summary

Pleads guilty to both criticisms of "Miss Henrietta Minor Rhadamanthus Darwin" [see 3896] of points in his Lectures [to working men].

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-4010
From
Thomas Henry Huxley
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
London, Jermyn St
Source of text
DAR 166: 299
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4010,” accessed on 13 November 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4010.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11

letter

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