From T. H. Huxley 6 March 1881
4 Marlborough Place | NW
March 6 1881
My dear Darwin
If all the sea & fresh water fishes together had tumbled on to my head I could not have been more astonished than I was by your letter & its inclosures or rather by the inclosures for I am never astonished by any amount of kindness in your letters—1
Do you recollect that I jokingly told you long ago after I had been to see Rich that I had half a mind to try & cut you out?2 Upon my life I feel almost as if I had defrauded you, in spite of the innocence of my heart and if it had been decent I should like to have requested to Mr Rich that he had better let the house go along with the rest to you & yours.
Don’t you covet it, like Naboth’s vineyard?—3 You will be forgetting that I am a man of peace now, & be for putting me “in the forefront of the battle”.—4
I have written to Mr. Rich and asked him to let my wife & me pay him a visit sometime this spring—5 Wife is immensely pleased—and bless her, has no doubt that Mr Rich is the one of the few men of discernment now living— It is really wonderfully kind & thoughtful of him—but he is a tough old gentleman & has a good chance of outlasting his legatee—who grieves to confess the fact that he is unmistakably growing older
I sometimes think I must have a row with somebody just to see if there is any of the old stuff left!
With all our loves | Ever Yours | T H Huxley
Footnotes
Summary
Astonished by Rich’s act. Has written to him.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-13074
- From
- Thomas Henry Huxley
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Marlborough Place, 4
- Source of text
- Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 9: 209)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13074,” accessed on 6 October 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13074.xml