WCP3220

Letter (WCP3220.3188)

[1]1, 2

Belgrave View, Ventnor

April 18 1904

My dear Dr. Wallace

I feel that I must thank you for the very great pleasure your book "Mans [sic] place in the Universe"3 has given me to read, I consider it a wonderful book, and am amazed at your being able to bring all the stupendous facts of the creation to bear — as you have done — on your argument — which I consider you have proved; concerning myself, and my opinion I will quote Tennyson4—

:"but what am I?

An infant crying in the night:

An infant crying for the Light:

And with no Language but a cry."5

My belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and his incarnation [2] making Him one with our race God with man, confirms me in this wonderful, and as far as I am aware of, original revelation of the scheme of your volume;

John the Baptist said "No man can receive any thing except it be given him from Heaven"6; the revelation of the mystery of Gravitation must have been given by God to man through Isaac Newton7, as surely as the Phrophesies [sic] of our Lord's Nativity — God with us — was made known to man through the seers and prophets of old time; so I cannot but feel that the truth of Evolution was given by God to man through Darwin8 and yourself —

[3]9 "Let Knowledge grow from more to more

But more of Reverence in us dwell

That mind and soul according well

May make one music as before,

But Vaster"10

Your chapters 10, 11 and 12 gave me the greatest pleasure to read, and I think I have been able to grasp all your arguments, any way, there is very little that I have not been able to "take in". I quite agree with you in your conclusion that there is nothing that need alarm the scientific, or the Religious mind. I agree with all you say to the end of that chapter — I wish you would kindly tell me where those lovely verses come from "Question" , "Answer"11 [4] you conclude your book with?

I hope you are generally satisfied with reviews of the volume?

Good Bye — our kind regards to your self and to Mrs. Wallace12

Yours Very truly | Edmund Evans [signature]

Dr. A.R. Wallace13

1
"Answ[ere]d" is written, in an unidentified hand, diagonally across the top left corner.
2
Text in another hand in the top right corner reads "249".
3
Wallace, A R. (1903). Man's Place in the Universe, Chapman and Hall, London. i-xi, 1-330.
4
Tennyson, Alfred, first Baron Tennyson (1809-1892). Poet.
5
Tennyson, Alfred (1850). In Memoriam A.H.H., Edward Moxon, London. i-vii, 1-210 [p. 77] <https://archive.org/stream/inmemoriam06tenngoog#page/n7/mode/1up> [accessed 18 February 2015].
6
John 3:27.
7
Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727). Natural philosopher and mathematician.
8
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882). Naturalist and geologist.
9
Text in another hand in the top right corner reads "250".
10
Tennyson, Alfred (1850). In Memoriam A.H.H., Edward Moxon, London. i-vii, 1-210 [p. vi] <https://archive.org/stream/inmemoriam06tenngoog#page/n7/mode/1up> [accessed 18 February 2015].
11
The verses can be seen in Wallace, A R. (1903). Man's Place in the Universe, Chapman and Hall, London. i-xi, 1-330 [p.325] <http://wallace-online.org/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=S728&viewtype=text> [accessed 18 February 2015]. Wallace quotes Tennyson's poem 'God and the Universe'. Tennyson, Alfred (1892). God and the Universe. In: The Death of Oenone, Akbar's Dream, and Other Poems. Macmillan and Co. New York and London. i-iv, 1-113. [pp. 110-111] <https://archive.org/details/deathofoenoneakb00tenn> [accessed 18 February 2015].
12
Annie Wallace (née Mitten) (1845/6-1914). They married in 1866.
13
A British Museum stamp in red ink is situated on the right of the page.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP3220.3188)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Ghosh, Susan [2015-02-24] Transcription checked by Benny, Ruth [2015-02-24] Transcription checked by Sherwood, Danni [2020-08-10]

Please cite as “WCP3220,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 2 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3220