WCP2949

[1]¹

Old Millhouse

Trumpington

Cambridge

[23 June [1909]

My dear D^r Wallace,

I feel that I must send you this short time on returning home from the Darwin banquet just to say how very warmly and enthusiastically the whole five hundred of us dining welcomed the proposa reading of the telegram which you will have now received.

When Arthur Balfour² came [2] to the end of his speech without one single allusion to you, and Arrhenius of Stockholm with only the casual mention of your name, & Poulton[?] with not even that, I could not help wondering what Darwin himself would have thought! I was delighted then when Vice-Chancellor (Canon Mason, Master of Pembroke) got up and said how much all must regret the absence of [3]³ two (yourself and Hooker⁴ — who was there but not at the Dinner) and then read out the telegram.

It was received with a storm of applause, but by no one more warmly than myself, who had followed you with such delight (not only spiritually but corporeally) through your long Eastern wanderings.

I wished so much you had been there.

I trust that you are keeping fairly well, despite our long winter, I had quite a long [4] talk with Hooker yesterday afternoon, and he seemed extraordinarily keen & interested about things still[.]

With kind regards, | believe me | very sincerely yours | F. H. H. Guillemard⁵[signature]

If you have a recent photograph to spare I should so much appreciate it.

Did you read Beccari's "Wanderings in the Great Forest of Bornes" which I edited, translated some little time ago. I thought it an extraordinarily interesting book, and should be glad to hear what you thought of it.