My dear Darwin

I read Butler’s letter & your draft and Litchfield’s letter last night; slept over them, and after lecturing about Dogfish & Chimæræ (subjects which have a distinct appropriateness to Butler) I have read them again—and I say, without the least hesitation, burn your draft & take no notice whatever of Mr Butler until the next edition of your book comes out—when the briefest possible note explanatory of the circumstances—will be all that is necessary¹

Litchfield ought hereafter to be called ‘the judicious’ as Hooker was (I don’t mean Sir Joe but the divine)—² To my mind nothing can be sounder than his advice and “I am a man of (sor)rows and acquainted with (coming to) grief”³

I am astounded at Butler—who I thought was a gentleman though his last book appeared to me to be supremely foolish— Has Mivart bitten him & given him Darwinophobia?⁴ It is a horrid disease & I would kill every son of a I found running loose with it—without mercy—

But dont you worry as to these things   Recollect what old Goethe said about his Butlers & Mivarts

“Hat doch der Wallfisch seine Laus Muss auch die meine haben.”⁵

We are as jolly as people can be who have been living in the dark for a week & I hope you are all flourishing

Ever Yours | T H Huxley