Dear Sir,

I am much obliged for your note and for the Essay which you have sent me.¹ I am a poor German Scholar and your German is difficult, but I think that I understand your meaning, and hope at some future time when more at leisure to recur to your Essay. As far as I can judge you have made a great advance in many ways in the subject; and I will send your paper to M^r. Edmund Gurney who has written and is much interested in the origin of the taste for music.² In reading your Essay it occurred to me that facility in the utterance of prolonged sounds (I do not think that you allude to this point) may possibly come into play in rendering them musical; for I have heard it stated that those who vary their voices much, and use cadences in long continued speaking feel less fatigued than those who speak on the same note.

I beg leave to remain, dear Sir, | Yours faithfully | Charles Darwin