From E. P. Wright   26 February 1879

Dear Sir

It is with very great diffidence that on this occasion I write to you— It is an easy matter to me to write to you on Nat History subjects, a very difficult one to write about myself—

I am a Candidate for the vacant chair of Botany in Edinburgh—a very great prize.¹ I do not at all know who may be the Candidates—but in such a race, it will be far from ignoble to be beaten—

I would most highly value & esteem, an expression of your opinion as to my general fittness for such a post—

To no one living, can I justify myself, so well as to you—for having, after a ten years spent in the investigation of animals, turned my attention to plants— I did so in 1869—in the hopes of advancing the teaching of biology in this place, where the students of Botany were 10 to one who studied Zoology—

This I feel confident is not a demerit in your eyes.²

While writing these lines, the thought has struck me, that perhaps your Son³ may be a Candidate for this very post—& to my mind, judging from his work done, there could scarcely be a more gifted or a more worthy Candidate— but as I can, by no means, be sure of this—I will venture to send this as it is written—asking you in every case to excuse it all and still to believe me | Most Sincerely yours | Ed Perceval Wright—

Charles Darwin | &c &c—