To Edward Sabine 5 February [1854]
Down Farnborough Kent
Feb. 5th
My dear Sir
I must thank you for your very interesting note, though I am sorry to have caused you the trouble of writing it.
Reconsidering your former note, I do not think that it was any expression in it, but rather my own ideas turning to French Practice that led me to suppose, as I did, that an Euloge combined with Historical criticism, was what was wanted.1
I quite agree with what you say on the desirableness of Geology leaving some records of its doings in the Transactions of the Royal Soc.— And the idea of an Historico-critical sketch of the labours of great Foreigners, seems to me a capital one; & I wish I could feel capacity & taste for the work.
Pray believe me | Very sincerely yours | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Summary
Thanks ES for his note [missing]. CD had understood that what was wanted was a eulogy [of Leopold von Buch] combined with historical criticism, after the French practice. Agrees that historico-critical sketches of work of great foreigners have a place in Philosophical Transactions and wishes he had taste and capacity for it.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1552
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Edward Sabine
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- The Royal Society (Sa: 390)
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1552,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1552.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5