To T. H. Huxley   [9 December 1859]1

[London]

Friday

My dear Huxley

At your leisure return enclosed in blank envelope to Down. I am off home—

Farewell my good and dear general agent. | C. D.

Do not forget when you write to Köllicker2 to say a word about the Translation, it would do good service to the subject.3 It will be God’s blessing if I do not become the most conceited man in all England.

1
Dated on the assumption that CD was writing from his brother’s house, where he stayed for two days en route to Down. He left Ilkley on 7 December and arrived in Down on 9 December 1859 (‘Journal’; Appendix II).
2
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker was professor of comparative anatomy in Würzburg. CD sent him a copy of the second edition of Origin in April 1860 (see Correspondence vol. 8, letter to John Murray,9April [1860]). CD had formerly presented Kölliker with a copy of Living Cirripedia (1854) (see Correspondence vol. 5, letters to T. H. Huxley, 2 September [1854] and 13 September [1854]).
3
For the negotiations concerning a German translation of Origin, see Correspondence vol. 8, letters to T. H. Huxley, 2 [February 1860] and 4 February [1860], and to H. G. Bronn, 4 February [1860].

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2574,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2574