Ɛpsilon

WCP2955

Letter (WCP2955.2845)

[1]1

29 THURLOE PLACE,

SOUTH KENSINGTON.

July 2nd [1909]2

Dear M r Wallace,

I received your kind message from Meldola3 & later from Mrs Wallace4 at the evening reception.

It was truly a wonderful & delightful gathering yesterday. That I should be asked to stand by you & Hooker5 & Galton6 seemed wonderful [2] & almost incredible, & gave me the very greatest pleasure.

I was glad to see you so well and strong and thought your speech7 not only most interesting but really beautiful in both thought and expression. It does one good to hear such wisdom from one who has knowledge & long experience — as that a man's merit must be estimated [3] not by the ideas or beliefs which have sprung up in his mind — but by what he does.

I hope that at no distant day I may be able to call on you at Wimborne — I looked for you at Parkstone in March 1907, when I was staying at Bournemouth — but found you had moved.

Those terrible Trustees of the Brit. Museum have turned me out of [4] house and home — without any reason assigned — or conceivable — except their ignorant conceit & the hatred of science — which most of them have. They ought not to be allowed to continue to mal-administer public funds.

Sincerely yours | E. Ray Lankester8 [signature]

P.S. I want the Linnean Society to re-print now at once – Malthus9 on Population10 — as part of the "celebration".11 Would you write to the President — if you approve of the proposal?

1
In ARW’s handwriting, "Answd".
2
Written by unknown hand.
3
Meldola, Raphael (1849-1915). British chemist and entomologist.
4
Wallace (née Mitten), Annie (1846-1914). British. Wife of ARW; daughter of William Mitten.
5
Hooker, Joseph Dalton (1817-1911). British botanist and explorer. Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 1865-85. President of the Royal Society 1873-78.
6
Galton, Francis (1822-1911). British biostatistician, polymath and founder of eugenics. One of the key figures in 19th Century research into heredity. Half-cousin of Charles Darwin.
7
Wallace, A. R. 1909. The centenary of Darwin. Clarion No. 897: 5.
8
Lankester, Edwin Ray ("Ray") (1847-1929). British authority zoology. Made important contributions to comparative anatomy, embryology, parasitology, and anthropology.
9
Malthus, Thomas Robert (1766-1834). British political economist and influential scholar in the field of demography.
10
Malthus, Thomas Robert. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population. London: J. Johnson.
11
On 22-24 June 1909, over 400 scientists and dignitaries from 167 different countries gathered at Cambridge to celebrate the centenary of Darwin's birth and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2955.2845)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcription checked by Benny, Ruth [2015-05-05] Transcribed by Powell, Jane [2015-06-05] Transcription checked by Sherwood, Danni [2020-08-10] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2026-04-18]

Please cite as “WCP2955,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2955