Ɛpsilon

To Ernst Krause   4 January [1881]1

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

Jan 4th

My dear Sir

I have received Kosmos & your letter.2 I thank you heartily for it. Nothing could be better, & your account of how it came to pass about Buffon & Coleridge is perfectly clear.3 My daughter has as yet only roughly translated to me the article in Kosmos & your letter,4 but I have not yet heard the answer to Butler about the extracts. I shd. much like to see your article in Kosmos translated & published in England; but I believe that Mr. Butler wishes for notoriety, & wd be pleased at its publication, for as he is utterly unscrupulous he would call me & you liars & rogues. I will consult one or two wise men, & be guided by their opinion. Anyhow I can at any time have the satisfaction of referring anyone who doubts my word to Kosmos.— Again I thank you most truly.— I will write again, when I see my way.—

My dear Sir | yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

P.S | I have now had your letter for Pop. Science read aloud to me.—5 It is quite excellent, & perhaps wd suffice without a translation of article in Kosmos.— But I will get good judgment.

I suppose you do not care whether it is published in Athenæum which has larger sale than in Dallas’s Journal.—6 I lean to the latter.—

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Ernst Krause, 2 January 1881.
2
In his letter of 2 January 1881, Krause had enclosed his review of Butler 1880 in Kosmos (Krause 1881b), and a separate response to specific accusations made by Samuel Butler.
3
Butler had accused Krause of extracting quotations from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, without acknowledgment from Butler 1879 (see Butler 1880, pp. 62–3; see also letter from Ernst Krause, 2 January 1881 and n. 4).
4
Elizabeth Darwin had translated Krause’s review in Kosmos, and Emma Darwin had translated his letter (see letter to H. E. Litchfield, 4 January 1881).
5
Krause had suggested that his reply to Butler be published in Popular Science Review.
6
William Sweetland Dallas was the editor of Popular Science Review. A translation of Krause’s reply to Butler was published in Nature, 27 January 1881, p. 288; this was a slightly revised version, dated 12 January 1881, of the text he sent to CD on 2 January 1881.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.3 My] after del ‘If’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12976,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12976