To H. W. Bates 22 April [1868]1
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
Ap. 22d
My dear Bates.
Hearty thanks.— you are the man to answer a question fully & clearly.— I return the drawing which & to whole case is capital for me.—2
I have nearly finished my M.S. on Lepidoptera & will then have it copied by a man who writes an excellent hand.—
Your most kind offer of reading it has made all the difference to me: if I had not known this I shd have been tormented the whole time with doubts.3 I have tried to be cautious & to avoid blunders, but when one writes on a subject, with which one is not familiar, mistakes almost inevitably occur.—
Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin
Two-thirds of the M.S. relates to facts communicated by you to me, or published by you.—
Footnotes
Bibliography
Calendar: A calendar of the correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821–1882. With supplement. 2d edition. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1994.
Summary
Thanks HWB for answering questions.
The MS on Lepidoptera is almost finished and he is glad HWB will read it; he is fearful of mistakes, not being familiar with the subject.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6135
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Henry Walter Bates
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Cleveland Health Sciences Library (Robert M. Stecher collection)
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6135,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6135.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16