My dear Häckel

I received this morning your present of the new Edit. & of two Essays.² I see in one of these you, as usual, pile honours high on my head.— As I leave home tomorrow morning for more than a week, I have thought that I would not delay in thanking you.—³ I am delighted for the sake of science & the public, & likewise for your own sake, to see the new Edition, which seems very greatly enlarged & I do not doubt in all ways improved. For my own especial self, it makes me groan a little, for my M.S is completed, so that I cannot profit by your improvements & additions:⁴ it would, alas, from my wretched knowledge of German take me a very long time to read the new Edition carefully.

In what I am going to send immediately to the Printers, I have tried to a certain extent to keep on distinct ground from you, & have much shortened some of the subjects which you have fully treated, & refer my readers to your works.⁵ And I hope before very long your Morphologie Gen: will be accessible to English Readers.⁶

I do not know how my Book & your Book will be received by the English: I observe at present that there is some tendency to decry geneological classification.— I have been rather better of late, & have worked harder than usual; but I suppose that my best day’s work is not one-third of what you can do. You seem a most indomitable worker.— I have seen no scientific man for a long time, except, about a month ago, Kölliker, whom I liked extremely.⁷

Do not work too hard, & believe me, my dear Hackel with the sincerest esteem— yours very truly | C: Darwin