My dear Etty

Litchfield’s remarks strike me, (ignorant as I am), as very good; & I sh^d. much like to insert them. But I cannot possibly give them as my own.—¹ I used at school to be a great hand at cribbing old verses, & I remember with fearful distinctness, D^r Butler’s prolonged hum, as he stared at me, & which said a host of unpleasant things, with as much meaning & clearness as Herbert Spencer could devise.² Now if I publish L.^s remarks as my own, I shall always fancy that the public are humming at me. Would L. object to my beginning with some such sentence as follows. “M^r Litchfield, who has long studied music has given me the following remarks”;—& then give these remarks in inverted commas.—³

L. was quite right, about there being a good deal of repetition, & 2 or 3 pages can be condensed into one.— The discussion does not read so atrociously bad, or innanely poor as I had fancied; but that is the highest praise which can be bestowed on my part—

Yours affectionately | C. Darwin

Send me a line in answer.— I am dead tired.— Woolners come on Sunday.— I believe we shall ask S. Butler, author of “Erewhon”, & grandson of D^r. Butler, my old Master.⁴