From W. F. Collier   22 February 1873

Dear Sir

I have read with great interest your Expression of the Emotions, and as you refer often to children I venture to send you a pamphlet that I have published on punishments in education hoping to enlist your sympathy and support.¹ I refer in it to the education of the character, as distinct from that of the intellect, and it seems the study of character, which is so highly interesting but so unsystematically pursued, ought to be combined with the study of the expression of the emotions. The diagnosis of a character is a very difficult thing to attain with any rapidity, and most of us are either mistaken in the expression of the emotions, or too much guided by them.

Will you allow me to point out a few instances in which I fancy I see a defect in your most instructive book. Adults, experienced in the world, generally learn to suppress the expression of the emotions, especially blushing; do you give sufficient weight to this fact in your argument?—² You say that the dog must have learnt to bark, because the wild dog, or the wolf, does not bark. I have heard the bark of the fox often & often, it is a short bark almost exactly like that of some small dogs.³ The fox is a very silent animal, but at times he barks like a dog, and he whines a little like a dog when caressed if tame.— I think I remember your saying in your “Variations of Animals under domestication”, a book for which we shall all feel ourselves to be under the deepest obligation to you when we have fully taken it in, that the speed of race-horses has not increased since Eclipse.⁴ I have no books by me to refer to, but I think that Blinkbonnie’s Derby was the “fastest on record”; so also was Blair-Athol’s, which must therefore have been faster still; and so also was Gladiateur’s, which must again have been faster; showing a progressive increase in pace.⁵ I am not a racing Man, but I like to observe the pedigree or hereditary part of the business, and I think I have heard racing Men say that Eclipse in our time would have been a mere ‘plater’.⁶ Pray excuse my criticisms, especially if I have mistaken you.

I am | Dear Sir | very truly yours | W. F. Collier

C. Darwin Esq.