To Samuel Butler 6 October [1865]1
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
Oct 6
My dear Sir
I thank you sincerely for your kind & frank letter which has interested me greatly.2
What a singular & varied career you have already run. Did you keep any journal or notes in N. Zealand for it strikes me that with your rare powers of writing you might make a very interesting work descriptive of a colonist’s life in N. Zealand.3
I return your printed letter which you might like to keep.4 It has amused me, especially the part in which you criticize yourself.5 To appreciate the latter part fully I ought to have read the Bishop’s letter which seems to have been very rich.6 You tell me not to answer your note but I cd not resist the wish to thank you for your letter.
With every good wish | believe me my dear Sir | yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Butler, Samuel. 1923. A first year in Canterbury Settlement and other early essays. Vol. 1 of The Shrewsbury edition of the works of Samuel Butler, edited by Henry Festing Jones and Augustus Theodore Bartholomew. London: Jonathan Cape. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company.
Summary
Thanks SB for letter of 1 October.
Returns the printed letter in which SB replied to the Bishop [of Wellington, N. Z.]; it amused him.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4911
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Samuel Butler
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- The British Library (Add MS 34486 D ff. 56–7)
- Physical description
- LS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4911,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4911.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13