To A. R. Wallace   10 January 1881

My dear Wallace

I am heartily glad that you are pleased about the Memorial.¹ I do not feel that my opinion is worth much on the points which you mention. A relation who is in a Government Office² & whose judgment, I think, may be fully trusted, felt sure that if you received an Official announcement without any private note, it ought to be answered officially, but if the case were mine, I would express whatever I thought & felt in an official document. His reason was that Gladstone gives or recommends the pension on public grounds alone.—³

If the case were mine I w^d not write to signers of the Memorial,⁴ because I believe that they acted like so many Jurymen in a claim against the Government. Nevertheless if I met any of them or was writing to them on any other subject, I sh^d take the opportunity of expressing my feelings.— I think you might with propriety write to Huxley, as he entered so heartily into the scheme & aided in the most important manner in many ways.—⁵

Sir J. Lubbock called here yesterday & M^r F. Balfour came here with one of my sons, & it w^d. have pleased you to see how unfeignedly delighted they were at my news of the success of the Memorial.—⁶ I wrote also to tell the D. of Argyll of the success, & he in answer expressed very sincere pleasure.—⁷

My dear Wallace | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin