WCP2955

[1]

29 Thurloe Place,

South Kensington.

July 2nd [1909]

¹

Dear M r Wallace,

I received your kind message from Meldola² & later from Mrs Wallace at the evening reception.

It was truly a wonderful & delightful gathering yesterday. That I should be asked to stand by you & Hooker³ & Galton⁴ seemed wonderful [2] & almost incredible, & gave me the very greatest pleasure.

I was glad to see you so well and strong and thought your speech 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[ish] 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 Lankester [signature]

P.S. I want the Linnean Society to re-print now at once — Malthus⁵ on Population — as part of the "Celebration". Would you write to the President — if you approve of the proposal?⁶