To John Collier   16 February 1882

My dear M^r. Collier

I must thank you for the gift of your Art Primer, which I have read with much pleasure.¹ Parts were too technical for me who could never draw a line, but I was greatly interested by the whole of the first part. I wish that you could explain why certain curved lines & symmetrical figures give pleasure. But will not your brother-artists scorn you for showing yourself so good an evolutionist.— Perhaps they will say that allowance must be made for him, as he has allied himself to so dreadful a man, as Huxley.² This reminds me that I have just been reading the last volume of essays.³ By good luck I had not read that on Priestly & it strikes me as the most splendid essay which I ever read. That on automatism is wonderfully interesting, more is the pity say I, for if I were as well armed as Huxley I would challenge him to a duel on this subject.—⁴ But I am a deal too wise to do anything of the kind, for he would run me through the body half-a-dozen times with his sharp & polished rapier, before I knew where I was.— I did not intend to have scribbled all this nonsense, but only to have thanked you for your present.

I remain | Yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Everybody whom I have seen & who has seen your picture of me is delighted with it. I shall be proud some day to see myself suspended at the Linn. Soc.^y.⁵