Ɛpsilon

To G. J. Romanes   28 January 1881

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

Jan 28th 1881

My dear Romanes

I have just read your review in Nature with the greatest interest.1 If the man is not as callous as a rhinoceros he will smart under your stricture; but I think that you have been almost too severe: It seems to me that you have hit the right nail on the head in attributing his conduct to the disappointment of his inordinate vanity. It is really a psychological curiosity that he should suppose (or pretend to suppose) that Huxley lectured & Murray advertised my book on account of his book,2—not to mention the curious history of his own thoughts & jottings which he has thought worth publishing. Good Lord how he will hate you. It is heroic in you to save my devoted head by calling down on your own his malignant revenge. But he has gone to the utmost possible limits of abuse, & no one will regard any further abuse.— As for myself, I shall now feel easy. Krause’s letter seems to me a very good one, & is strictly accurate in every respect—3

Believe me, my dear Romanes | Yours faithfully & gratefully | Charles Darwin

P.S. It is lucky you did not come down to turn out the pigs, for there is much infection about, & strictest rules are followed.4 I am daily bothered to give orders as a magistrate for animals to cross from one field to another on the same farm, if across any road!5

1
Romanes’s review of Samuel Butler’s Unconscious memory (Butler 1880) was published in Nature, 27 January 1881, pp. 285–7.
2
Butler remarked that Thomas Henry Huxley’s lecture ‘The coming of age of the Origin of Species’ (T. H. Huxley 1880c) was a defence of CD against accusations made by Butler in a letter in the Athenæum, 31 January 1880; he also noted that CD and Ernst Krause’s book, Erasmus Darwin, had been advertised more frequently and prominently after his complaint than before (see Butler 1880, p. 77). John Murray was CD’s publisher.
3
Ernst Krause’s reply to Butler was published in Nature, 27 January 1881, p. 288.
5
CD was a county magistrate for the Bromley division of Kent (Post Office directory of the six home counties).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.6 book] interl
3.1 lucky] above del ‘lucky’
3.2 about,] interl
3.2 are] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13029,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13029