Ɛpsilon

To T. H. Huxley   10 June [1855]

Down Farnborough Kent

June 10th

My dear Huxley

Shall you attend the Council Royal Socy. on Thursday next? I have not been very well of late, & I doubt whether I can attend; & if I can do anything (pray conceal the scandalous fact) I want to go to Crystal Palace to meet Horners, Lyells & a party.—1 So I want to know whether you will speak for me most strongly for Barrande:2 you know better than I do, his admirable labours on development of Trilobite, & his most important work on his lower or Primordial zone. I enclose an old note of Lyells to show what he thinks.3 With respect to Dana,4 whom I also proposed, you know well his merits: I can speak most highly of his Classificatory work on Crustacea & his Geographical Distribution.5 His Volcanic Geology is admirable: & he has done much good work on Coral Reefs.—6

If you attend do not answer this; but if you cannot be at council, please inform me, & I suppose, I must, if I can, attend.—7

Thank you, for your Abstract of your Lecture at Royal Institution,8 which interested me much, & rather grieved me, for I had hoped things had been in a slight degree, otherwise.

I heard some time ago, that before long I might congratulate you on becoming a married man:9 from my own experience of some fifteen years I am very sure that there is nothing in this wide world, which more deserves congratulation, & most sincerely & heartily do I congratulate you, & wish you many years of as much happiness as this world can afford.

1
Emma Darwin wrote ‘Crystal P.’ in her diary on 14 June 1855, the same day as the council meeting of the Royal Society.
2
Joachim Barrande was a candidate for election as a foreign member of the Royal Society, but he was not nominated at the council meeting on 14 June.
4
James Dwight Dana was also one of the candidates who failed to be nominated for election.
5
Dana 1852–3 and Dana 1853.
6
Dana 1849 and Dana 1848.
7
Huxley attended the meeting of the council on 14 June; CD was absent (Royal Society council minutes).
8
T. H. Huxley 1855b. There is a copy in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL. Huxley disputed the facts upon which Louis Agassiz had based his view that certain fish have in their embryonic stage characteristics of earlier adult forms. Huxley concluded that ‘there is no real parallel between the successive forms assumed in the development of the life of the individual at present, and those which have appeared at different epochs in the past’ (T. H. Huxley 1855b, p. 85; Foster and Lankester eds. 1898–1903, 1: 303–4).
9
Huxley had become engaged to Henrietta Anne Heathorn in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1847 during the voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake. Henrietta Heathorn and her parents arrived in England at the beginning of May 1855. She and Huxley were married on 21 July (L. Huxley ed. 1900, 1: 128–9).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.00 anything] interl
1.00 go to] ‘to’ interl
1.00 better] after comma del
2.00 do not] ‘not’ above del‘not’
3.00 me,] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1697,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1697