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Darwin Correspondence Project

To H. E. Darwin   [March] 18701

Spring 1870

My dear Hen.

I have worked through, (& it is hard work) half of the 2d Chapter on mind, & your corrections & suggestions are excellent.2 I have adopted the greater number, & I am sure that they are very great improvements.— Some of the transpositions are most just. You have done me real good service; but by Jove how hard you must have worked & how thoroughily you have mastered my M.S. I am pleased with this Chapter now that it comes fresh to me.—

Your affectionate, admiring & obedient | Father, C. D.

All is as clear as daylight— your plan of putting corrections saves me a world of trouble, by just as much as it must have caused you.— N.B. you can write, I see, a perfectly clear hand, as in all the corrections.—

Footnotes

The month is conjectured from the reference to spring, and from the relationship between this letter, the letter to H. E. Darwin, [8 February 1870], and the letter from Emma Darwin to H. E. Darwin, [25 March 1870] (DAR 219.9: 82), in which Emma asks Henrietta to write when she receives a manuscript. This manuscript was presumably that of the chapter or chapters of Descent following those on the mental powers of humans and animals.
CD had asked Henrietta, who was travelling in France and Italy, to read the manuscript of Descent; see letter to H. E. Darwin, [8 February 1870], and letter from H. E. Darwin, [after 8 February 1870].

Bibliography

Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.

Summary

Responds to her suggested corrections [of Descent].

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-7123
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Henrietta Emma Darwin/Henrietta Emma Litchfield
Sent from
unstated
Source of text
DAR 185: 58
Physical description
ALS 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7123,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7123.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 18

letter