Ɛpsilon

To Martin Beckhard   10 February [1878]1

Down. | Beckenham. Kent.

Feb 10th.

Dear Sir.

I thank you very sincerely for your most kind letter & present of the two works of Geiger.—2 I have known his name for some time, though I have never read a word of his writings—   I will now thanks to your kindness, endeavour to do so before very long; but I labour under the great disadvantage of reading German with extreme slowness, & as my health is weak I am utterly unable to read one tenth of the books, published by your wonderful countrymen, which I wish to read & which I ought to read.

With sincere thanks. | Believe me | Dear Sir. | Yours faithfully— | Ch. Darwin.

Copy

1
The year is established by a note in the copyist’s hand.
2
Beckhard probably sent Lazarus Geiger’s Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Menschheit (On the developmental history of mankind; Geiger 1871) and Der Ursprung der Sprache 2d ed. (The origin of language; Geiger 1878). A copy of Geiger 1871 is in the Darwin Library–Down. Geiger used the colour vocabulary of ancient cultures to support his theory of language development; for an earlier reference to Geiger’s work, see Correspondence vol. 25, letter from Ernst Krause, 14 July 1877.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11349,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11349