To Pieter Harting   19 March 1877

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

March 19th 1877

Dear Sir

I have been deeply gratified by the very great honour which has been conferred on me by a naturalist so well known as yourself, having thought it worth while to publish an account of what I have been able to do in natural Science.—1 I cannot read the Dutch language, but one of my sons has translated to me large portions of your essay, & the extremely kind manner in which you speak of my works has delighted me.

An account of your countrymen’s generous sympathy in having sent me on my birthday the magnificent Album has been published in almost every newspaper throughout England.; & you may well believe that the present has given me & my family lasting pleasure.2

I beg you once again to accept my cordial thanks, & to believe me with much respect, Dear Sir | yours faithfully | Charles Darwin

1
Harting had sent a copy of his article ‘Darwin’ from Album der Natuur (Harting 1877); CD’s annotated offprint is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL. Harting prefaced his article on CD’s contributions to science with a translation into Dutch of the letters published in Nature, 8 March 1877, pp. 410–12 (see letter from A. A. van Bemmelen and H. J. Veth, 6 February 1877, and letter to A. A. von Bemmelen, 12 February 1877).
2
For his 68th birthday, CD had been sent an album containing photographs of 217 distinguished professors and lovers of science from Holland; it accompanied the letter from A. A. van Bemmelen and H. J. Veth, 6 February 1877. Apart from the announcement in Nature (see n. 1, above), reports of the album also appeared in The Times, 22 February 1877, p. 11, and many other newspapers, including the York Herald, 23 February 1877, p. 8, and the Bristol Mercury, 24 February 1877, p. 3.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10899,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10899