From Henry Holland 4 November [1864]1
Brook Street
Nov 4
My dear Charles
I cannot forbear writing a a few lines, to express the very great pleasure I feel in the decision as to the Copley Medal yesterday.2 Never has it been more appropriately or worthily bestowed.— On every account I heartily rejoice in it
I hear frequently of your health from Erasmus.3 The intelligence of your improvement within the last two or three months has been very welcome to me.4
Erasmus, at my suggestion, has proposed your reading (if you have not already done so) the discussion of your doctrine in the 10th & 11th Nos of Herbert Spencer’s Biology. I may add to these the 12th No also, which I have just been reading.—5 He is a very remarkable writer, & has done you ample justice.
I have been having some participation with Falconer & Busk, in the examination of the Gibraltar Caves & Fossils, during the latter weeks of the Autumn.6 In addition to the good I always get from the sea, I had some profitable riding on the Morocco side of the Straits, from Tangiers,— a little less savage, however, in the sights it shewed than my military ride with the Army of the Potomac, in Virginia last year7
Ever my dear Charles your’s very truly | H Holland
Footnotes
Bibliography
Denney, Robert E. 1992. The civil war years: a day-by-day chronicle of the life of a nation. New York: Sterling Publishing.
Holland, Henry. 1872. Recollections of past life. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
Spencer, Herbert. 1860–2. First principles. London: George Manwaring; Williams & Norgate.
Spencer, Herbert. 1864–7. The principles of biology. 2 vols. London: Williams & Norgate.
Summary
Congratulations on the Copley Medal.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4659
- From
- Henry Holland, 1st baronet
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Brook St
- Source of text
- DAR 166: 244
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4659,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4659.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 12