Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2Darwin, Charles
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Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2
Darwin, Charles
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Correspondence
Again I have to thank you for one of your very pleasant letters of May
7th, enclosing a very pleasant remittance of 22 pounds. I am in simple
truth astonished at all the kind trouble you have taken for me. I
return Appleton's account. For the chance of your wishing for a formal
acknowledgment I send one. If you have any further communication to the
Appletons, pray express my acknowledgment for [their] generosity; for
it is generosity in my opinion. I am not at all surprised at the sale
diminishing; my extreme surprise is at the greatness of the sale. No
doubt the public has been SHAMEFULLY imposed on! for they bought the
book thinking that it would be nice easy reading. I expect the sale to
stop soon in England, yet Lyell wrote to me the other day that calling
at Murray's he heard that fifty copies had gone in the previous
forty-eight hours. I am extremely glad that you will notice in
'Silliman' the additions in the 'Origin.' Judging from letters (and I
have just seen one from Thwaites to Hooker), and from remarks, the most
serious omission in my book was not explaining how it is, as I believe,
that all forms do not necessarily advance, how there can now be SIMPLE
organisms still existing... I hear there is a VERY severe review on me
in the 'North British,' by a Rev. Mr. Dunns (This statement as to
authorship was made on the authority of Robert Chambers.), a Free Kirk
minister, and dabbler in Natural History. I should be very glad to see
any good American reviews, as they are all more or less useful. You say
that you shall touch on other reviews. Huxley told me some time ago that
after a time he would write a review on all the reviews, whether he will
I know not. If you allude to the 'Edinburgh,' pray notice SOME of the
points which I will point out on a separate slip. In the "Saturday
Review" (one of our cleverest periodicals) of May 5th, page 573, there
is a nice article on [the 'Edinburgh'] review, defending Huxley, but not
Hooker; and the latter, I think, [the 'Edinburgh' reviewer] treats most
ungenerously. (In a letter to Mr. Huxley my father wrote: "Have you seen
the last "Saturday Review"? I am very glad of the defence of you and of
myself. I wish the reviewer had noticed Hooker. The reviewer, whoever he
is, is a jolly good fellow, as this review and the last on me showed.
He writes capitally, and understands well his subject. I wish he had
slapped [the 'Edinburgh' reviewer] a little bit harder.") But surely you
will get sick unto death of me and my reviewers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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