Dear Sir

Permit me to offer you, in the hope of your acceptance, the 1st Vol of the ‘Life of Wedgwood’.¹ I regret I have to send the work in this partial form, but the envy and machinations of two unscrupulous men rendered the step imperative.² The other volume will appear as soon as possible.

I lay the book before you with a trembling hand, and with sincere and great humility of spirit. I know what the subject requires—and I would that I had the highest human ability to do justice to my conception of it. Yet where I fail—my publishers splendid justice to the work—must be some compensation³—and the veneration I have for the names of Darwin and Wedgwood, and the liberal point of view from which I judge them and their opinions—must make up—as I hope it will in your kindly eyes—for deficiencies of various kinds. A bigot—whether social, political, or religious, could not estimate the character of two such men. Men far greater than their generation.

I am using your valuable letters as I go on.⁴ I shall not have space I fear to do full justice to the more scientific aspect of Wedgwood’s labours and bent of mind in this work⁵—but—as I am going to carry on the details of these and other subjects, through a work I shall call ‘Thomas Wedgwood and his Contemporaries’⁶ I shall be able to find a still more fitting place for many interesting though severer truths. As soon as I have finished the Life of Josiah Wedgwood, I will make what further extracts I need from your valuable letters—and carefully return them. Meanwhile they are in excellent keeping.

I trust your health has improved, for missing that—we miss almost the best thing we hold in life. Do not please trouble yourself to write— a line from Mrs Darwin just to say the book has reached you safely—is all that is required.

Dear Sir | With deep respect & grateful obligation | your’s faithfully | Eliza Meteyard

C. Darwin Esq.