WCP382

Letter (WCP382.382)

[1]

Hurstpierpoint.

April 26. 1867.

Dear Wallace

I have not written to you for a good while, & indeed scarcely to anybody, for after doing a little writing on my own account every day I have had no strength left for writing letters. Besides as you told me you had fallen in for an extensive spiritualistic correspondence I considered it w[oul]d interest you much more than letters so purely materialistic as mine must ever be. I am glad however to learn that you do occasionally deign to touch worldly subjects. When you come over here (as Mitten1 now tells me he expects you will shortly) I hope you will bring a copy of your memoir on Malay Migrations2 (I think it is) for us to read.

Do you recollect a couple of white kittens that had just opened their eyes when you were here last summer? One of them had odd eyes — one blue the other grey; the other had two blue eyes. I asked Rose3 to keep the blue-eyed one for me (wishing to test the assertion that such cats are invariably deaf) if it should turn out a She. Oh, said she, they are both Shes. But how can you tell when they are so little? Why, we looked! — Very laudable practice this of looking before speaking; but alas! I have reared the cat, which proved an unmistakable Tom, [2] having the characteristic thick tail and other matters, propria quae maribus [Latin: things appropriate to males] (but not necessary to mention here). Moreover it can hear as well as I can.

Hanbury4 is at Paris, having been named a Juror at the Exposition.5 Do you go there?

As I hope soon to see you, you must excuse this brief scrawl. My best regards to Annie6, and believe me

Yours ever faithfully | Richd. Spruce. [signature]

Mitten, William (1819-1906). Father-in-law of ARW; chemist and authority on bryophytes.
Wallace, A. R. 1869. The Malay Archipelago; the Land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Paradise, 2 vols. London, UK: Macmillan.
Mitten, Rose Elizabeth (born c.1848), daughter of William Mitten; Sister-in-law of ARW
Hanbury, Daniel (1825-1875). British botanist and pharmacologist.
Hanbury served on the jury for agricultural products (produits agricoles, non alimentaires) at the Exposition Universelle in 1867. (Hanbury, D. & Ince, J. (Ed). 1876. Science Papers Chiefly Pharmacological and Botanical . London: Macmillan & Co. p.23).
Wallace (née Mitten), Annie (1846-1914). Wife of ARW; daughter of William Mitten, chemist and authority on bryophytes.

Please cite as “WCP382,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 12 November 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP382