WCP5341

Athenaeum

Monday¹

Dear Darwin

I am a sinner not to have written you ere this, if only to thank you for your glorious book² — What a mass of close reasoning on curious facts & fresh phenomena — it is capitally written & will be very successful [,] I say this on the strength of 2 or 3 plunges into as many chapters, for [sic] I have not yet attempted to read it. Lyell³, with whom we are staying is perfectly enchanted. & is absolutely gloating over it. I must accept — your compliment to me & acknowledgement of supposed assistance ^{from me} as the warm tribute of affection from [2] an honest (though deluded) man, & furthermore accept it as very pleasing to my vanity — but my dear fellow ^neither name nor my judgment ^{nor my assistance} deserved any such compliments. & if I am dishonest enough to be pleased with what I don[']t deserve it must just pass. — How different the book reads from the mss — I see I shall have much to talk over with you. Those lazy printers have not finished my luckless Essay — which beside your book will look like a ragged handkerchief beside a Royal Standard. I will send copy for Wallace & any one else you wish.

I read the contemptuous & contemptible Anthenaem yesterday Lyell thinks entre nous⁴ that [3] Woodward⁵ may have wrote it, & I think his evidence conclusive but I will leave him to tell you what he thinks — so pray remember that I have said nothing about it! One thing you may set your mind at rest about — your book is as cautious & modest as any could be

Of course Lindley⁶ wrote the G[ardeners'] C[hronicle] Article on H[enry] C[ottrell] W[atson].⁷ & upon my honor I do think it richly deserved. The sneering contempt with which he treats his enemies the virulence of his dishonest attacks on those he knows little of, & his patronizing air to those he approves, are beyond all whipping powers of reviewers. & I do think that his whole tone & argument in the long discussions of Cybele IV⁸ are as wrong in fact as they are [4] principle. — I had nothing at all to do with the Review. —

I saw Huxley⁹ today who talked about giving a R[oyal] Inst[titution]¹⁰ Friday Evening to your book—but pray say nothing of this — it may come to nothing — he is vastly pleased with it.

All Well | Ever y[ou]rs affect | Jos D Hooker [signature]