From Thomas Henry Huxley 1 January 1865
Jany 1. 1865
My dear Darwin
I cant do better than write my first letter of the year to you—if it is only to wish you and yours, your fair share (& more than your fair share if need be) of good for the New year— The immediate cause of my writing however, was turning out my pocket & finding therein an unanswered letter of yours containing a scrap on which is a request for a photograph1—which I am afraid I overlooked— At least, I hope I did and then my manners wont be so bad— I inclose the latest version of myself (N.B. another will be shortly published by my wife but the likeness is not warranted to be so accurate)2
I wish I could follow out your suggestion about a book on Zoology3 (By the way please to tell Miss Emma that my last is a book.4 Marry come up! Does her ladyship call it a pamphlet?)
But I assure you that writing is a perfect pest to me unless I am interested— and not only a bore but a very slow process— I have some popular lectures on Physiology which have been half done for more than a twelvemonth & I hate the sight of them because the subject no longer interests me & my head is full of other matters5
So I have just done giving a set of Lectures to working men on the various Races of Mankind which really would make a book in Miss Emma’s sense of the word & which I have had reported— But when am I to work them up?6 Twenty four Hunterian Lectures loom between me & Easter—7 I am dying to get out the second volume of the book that is not a book but in vain.8
I trust you are better though the last news I had of you from Lubbock was not so encouraging as I could have wished—9
With best wishes & remembrances to Mrs Darwin
Ever yours | T H Huxley
Thanks for ‘für Darwin’—10 I had it—
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bibby, Cyril. 1959. T. H. Huxley. Scientist, humanist and educator. London: Watts.
Calendar: A calendar of the correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821–1882. With supplement. 2d edition. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1994.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Di Gregorio, Mario A. 1984. T. H. Huxley’s place in natural science. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.
Summary
Sends photograph.
THH wishes he could write the popular zoology but writing is a boring and slow process when he is not interested, and he is overburdened with lectures.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4732
- From
- Thomas Henry Huxley
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- DAR 166: 304
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4732,” accessed on 17 August 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4732.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13