WCP6407

Letter (WCP6407.7406)

[1]1

84, FELLOWS ROAD,

HAMPSTEAD, N.W.

June 25th 1913

Dear Mr Wallace2 —

I was out of town last week and so unable to reply promptly to your note and to acknowledge the receipt of Miss Casey’s3 book. I have got considerable new information from it for which I am grateful to her and to you. I am posting with this the book by John Burroughs4 "Time and Change"5 which I feel sure she will enjoy.

May I take this opportunity of returning the most cordial and sincere thanks of Mr Warren6 and myself for your hospitality to us. It was a memorable day to both of us. Three days will always stand out in my memory from all others; one afternoon with Tennyson7, an evening with Browning8 and the afternoon with your father. The meeting with D[octo]r. Wallace will always seem the more living and vital of the three because I am more [2] deeply and personally interested in the things he has studied and written about. There were, naturally, many things I wanted to ask questions about but felt I had no right to occupy so much of his time as I did. The most important theme we touched upon was, for me, that of variation as applied to vast numbers in a species. Having in mind what D[octo]r. Wallace has said about those who have not reported him correctly I have thought that perhaps he would be good enough to write a few lines, in answer to the inclosed [sic] question, which I might quote in my lecture. I should then be sure of conveying his exact thought.

Some one has said that the best way of treating a kindness is to accept it and pass it on. That is all I fear that I can promise in return for the stimulus to fuller life and activity that I have received from your father.

Very truly yours | J Leon Williams9 [signature]

1
The page is numbered [WP16/1/69] in pencil in the top RH corner. [old ref[?] WP2/1/41] is written in pencil in the bottom LH corner of the page.
2
Wallace, William Greenell (1871-1951) Electrical engineer, second son and third child of ARW.
3
Possibly Comerford-Casey, Olive Bourcicault (1875-?) or Comerford-Casey, Alvina Bertram ("Bertie") (1877-?) daughters of the Reverend George Edwards Comerford-Casey (1846-1912), Anglican priest, teacher, botanist and author, who died in Parkstone, Dorset.
4
Burroughs, John (1837-1921) American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the U.S. conservation movement.
5
Burroughs, J. (1912) Time And Change Boston & New York, Houghton Mifflin Company.
6
Possibly Warren, Edward Royal (1860-1942) American naturalist and engineer. His first book Mammals of Colorado was published in 1910, (the second The Beaver: Its Work and Its Ways in 1927).
7
Tennyson, Alfred, 1st Baron Tennyson (1809-1892) Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland 1850-1892.
8
Browning, Robert (1812-1889) English poet and playwright, one of the foremost Victorian poets.
9
Williams, James Leon (1852-1932) American prosthodontist and pioneer dental histologist. He also practiced dentistry in London and was one of the founders of the International Association for Dental Research.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP6407.7406)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP6407,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP6407