From R. B. Carter   17 October 1881

sir,

i cannot doubt that you often receive applications for counsel or help in matters relating to your special work, and i have been told that you treat them indulgently. i can only hope that you will extend indulgence to me.

at the approaching ‘health congress’ at brighton, i have undertaken to give an address upon ‘eyesight;’ and the fraction of the very large subject which i have selected relates to the duty of handing down unimpaired to posterity the organs which we have received from our progenitors.¹ i am desirous to introduce a necessarily very brief outline of the probable course of development of the eye by selection; and i shall be very grateful to you if you will assist me in choosing the best examples of probable stages of the process, or the best illustrations of its course. if you would kindly allow me to have an interview with you on the subject, i will come down any afternoon that you may appoint; and, as i have heard that it fatigues you to talk for more than a short time, i will be careful not to trespass upon you unduly.

i must beg you to accept my apologies for troubling you, and i am, sir, | faithfully yours, | R Brudenell Carter

charles darwin esq., f.r.s.