From William Bowman   5 October 1866

Dear M^r Darwin

I must write one line to say how pleased I am that any little effort of mine should have met your approval—¹ With no wide or accurate acquaintance with the grounds of the great argument to which you have contributed so much and so powerfully, I cannot say I have any remaining doubt as to how the future will regard it. So that I could not honestly have expressed myself otherwise than I did if I touched upon it at all—and I felt that the occasion called for or at least admitted of some allusion to it.²

I was very near troubling you with an afternoon call one Sunday last Summer which I was spending with Lord Cranworth—³ Yesterday I had the pleasure of inscribing my name near yours in M^rs Dent’s book at Sudeley.⁴

Yrs very sincerely | W Bowman

C. Darwin Esq