My dear Wallace

I have just read with infinite satisfaction your crushing article in Nature.² I have been the more glad to see it, as I have not seen the book itself: I did not order it, as I felt sure from D^r. B.’s former book, that he c^d. write nothing of value. But assuredly I did not suppose that anyone would have written such a mass of inaccuracies & rubbish.— How rich is everything which he says & quotes from Herbert Spencer!³

By the way I suppose that you read H. Spencer’s answer to Martineau: it struck me as quite wonderfully good, & I felt even more strongly inclined than before to bow in reverence before him.—⁴ Nothing has amused me more in your Review than D^r. B.^s extraordinary presumption in deciding that such men as Lyell, Owen, H. Spencer, Mivart, Gaudry &c &c are all wrong.⁵ I daresay it would be very delightful to feel such overweening confidence in oneself.

I have had a poor time of it of late: rarely having an hour of comfort, except when asleep or immersed in work; & then when that is over I feel dead with fatigue. I am now correcting my little book on Expression; but it will not be published till November, when of course a copy will be sent to you. I shall now try whether I can occupy myself, without writing anything more on so difficult a subject, as evolution.

I hope you are now comfortably settled in your new house & have more leisure than you have had for some time.— I have looked out in the paper for any notice about the curatorship of the new museum, but have seen nothing.— If anything is decided in your favour, I beg you to inform me.⁶

My dear Wallace | Very truly yours | C. Darwin

How grandly the public has taken up Hooker’s case:⁷