To J. B. Innes   26 January [1871]¹

My dear Innes

I have had two very bad days & am shaken & must be very brief—; but I cannot delay thanking you heartily for all your trouble.—² I will keep all your documents for a few weeks & then return them.— I have not heard from my solicitor, so he cannot have heard from M^r. Horsman.—³ A Q.C. with whom my son George is reading,⁴ tells him, he is convinced that H. could have no case, as it makes all the difference, what is said only in conversation in the same Parish in which persons reside, & I cannot remember that I ever uttered the man’s name out of this Parish.—

I read your letter aloud to my ladies,⁵ & they all laughed heartily, but it also excited other & higher feelings in all of us with respect to you.— By the way Henrietta exclaimed (& I can assure you she is the deepest critic I know in the world) “how unjust he is about his own sermons, why they were the only ones I ever heard in my life, to the whole of which I always listened,” I believe her words “I could not help listening to”.—

You are a bold audacious man to tell your clerical friends that your a friend to me.—

I read the other day a story of a Scotch minister who said “now let us pray for the poor devil,—for he has no friends”—or some such words—⁶ The application is evident—

Ever yours most sincerely | C. Darwin