Dear Mr. Darwin!

This time Your birthday does not overtake and force me to use electric means to arrive in time with my sincerest felicitations.¹ I have long waited for this date to be entitled to write to You,—(the origin of this title, of course, is a mere usurpation)—and to tell You, that thanks to Your generous and quick help in a most dangerous moment both the Zoological Station and its founder have returned back to health and are, if not vigorous, but well enough to venture further on upon their old courses.²

In fact, the Zoological Station is flourishing and the last rocks have been safely got over by a new grant of the German Empire amounting to another £.1500.³ This new subvention is not only a great step in a financial point of view, but it proves, that the Government at Berlin is well disposed towards the young Institution, and I am happy to add, that public opinion in Germany is quite in favour of the idea, that the Government once may enter into possession and take the administration of the Zoological Station, should I be forced to abandon it. This is a great satisfaction for me; it was one of my worst feelings during the two years of nervous depression, that after all I had only worked “pour le roi de Prusse” but not for the true one. If I therefore succeed in developing the Station further and further, I may once,—say in three or four years—have to put my name under an arrangement, which secures for a long period to the young Institution the powerful help of the Berlin-Government.⁴

It is therefore with a feeling of double satisfaction, that I look out for the next British Association, to come once more to the cherished island and speak loudly my thanks, and then I will ask Your permission to pay a visit also to Yourself, if Your health will permit You to receive me.⁵

When I was last time in England,—or I believe before last time—I made some allusions to a very much differing view of mine, regarding the question of ancestry of Vertebrates. I have now embodied some of my opinions in a little pamphlet, entitled: “The Origin of Vertebrates and the Principle of Succession of Functions” which I hope I may be able to send to You before the end of this month.⁶ It seems rather likely to me, You will not be pleased with it,—but then, I have been troubling my brains with these thoughts for more than seven years, and at last thought it best, to bring them out, when I got a pamphlet of Prof. Semper, wherein a strong justification of my general view was arrived at, and together with it a very shortsighted range of speculations.⁷ To annull these and to open the way for a new series of theoretical questions, I ventured upon the ocean of printed paper,— who knows whether I shall have a better fate than so many other “Polar” Expeditions?! As far as I can see, there will be no friend for my little book, and though I have kept away from any polemics, I feel rather sure, that an outcry shall be raised against me.

Happily I am living here with the grandest view possible, before my windows, and the cry of the Napolitans (—and they have the greatest mouth-cavities I ever saw—) does not reach up to my mountain-palace.⁸ I have thus accustomed my eye to long distances, and the echo of a gun takes very long before it comes back to the place where the gun was fired off. Therefore I hope I may quietly wait for the echo of my little gun, but shall be only impatient, what You will say to it.

As I hope next to speak publicly, also in English Journals, of the Zoological Station, I don’t tell You now any particulars and conclude this letter with my heartiest wishes for Your health.⁹

With kindest regards to Yourself and Your family | Very faithfully Yours | Anton Dohrn