To T. H. Huxley [30? July 1860]1
[Hartfield]
– Wolstenholme2 (tutor of Christ’s Coll) told me (i.e. my son
William) last night;3 that two Cambridge men, one a blind man named Fawcett,4 were at the Brit. Assoc.; and after the meeting they happened to be near the B. of Oxford; and the one asked Fawcett whether he thought the Bishop had ever read the Origin; and the blind man shouted out in a loud voice “Oh no, I would swear he has never read a word of it.” The Bishop bounced round with an awful scowl and was just going to pitch into him, when he saw that he was blind, and said nothing.—
Footnotes
Bibliography
DNB: Dictionary of national biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. 63 vols. and 2 supplements (6 vols.). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1912. Dictionary of national biography 1912–90. Edited by H. W. C. Davis et al. 9 vols. London: Oxford University Press. 1927–96.
Summary
Relates anecdote concerning the blind Henry Fawcett and the Bishop of Oxford; Fawcett proclaimed, within the other’s hearing, that the Bishop had not read the Origin.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2887
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Thomas Henry Huxley
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- DAR 145
- Physical description
- C 1p inc
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2887,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2887.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8
