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Darwin Correspondence Project

From R. B. Litchfield   1 February 1880

4, Bryanston Street, | Portman Square. W.

1 Feb 1880

Dear Mr. Darwin,

Since sending off our last packet I bethought myself I shd. like to ask the first bystander I could meet how Butler’s letter struck him as regards the need of an answer, and so I went in & shewed the Athm. to Pollock in this street.1 As an accustomed literary man & man of the world I wanted to see whether he wd. agree w. me. But of course I did not tell him anything before he read the article. I merely said when you have read it I want to ask yr. opinion on a certain point and when he had read it my question was does that in yr opinion need any answer? His reply was 1st. that he might be prejudiced as he knew something of B.—but he was strong that it didn’t want answering. (Of course I didnt lead him to suppose it was any more than a question from me personally.)

He had himself written the Pall Mall Article as it happened—also an Art. in Sat. Rev on Butlers Book.2 B., he tells me, is known to be getting up a grand reply to all his critics & he is making a point of getting their names. He wrote to the Saty w. this enqy but the Sat. put him off with a formal refusal.3 All wh. helps to shew that he is a virulent Salamander of a man4 who will fight to the end, and as P. said, his greatest joy wd. be to get into a public dispute w. a man of eminence.

P. however, tho’ aware of his character, was by no means prejudiced agst his bks. (he thinks them nonsense but very clever nonsense) and his opinion on the question of a reply was I have no doubt a dry opinion.

I have since looked with a critical eye at yr. draft & I am thereby only confirmed in my impression for I do not find that it, in substance, contains anything wh. is not already in the sentence quoted by B. from yr note.5 But while to the Substance of yr. explann it adds nothing it gives B. the most admirable chance for another nasty letter inasmuch as it gives him new facts. At present he knows, & need know, nothing of the mere mechanical detail of the accident wh. caused the omission. These you in part give him. As he is now he cannot say anything more: he has made the worst of all he knows. But to a wretched unscrupulous word-fencer as he is yr. letter opens material for a wholly new attack, and if the Athm. likes to put it in, he can easily make it appear that there’s something very suspicious & mysterious in yr. proceedings.

Given only that a man that is a blackguard and there is no end to the stuff he mighn’t write on such a theme. For illustration’s sake I have put down a few sentences, as they came into my head, such as he might string together.6

The fact is that such a story as that of the alteration of the proofs in this case cannot be made satisfactory unless it is told in full: and of course to tell it in full wd be ridiculous. The main topic is itself a merely microscopic point, and to go into the business wd. be too intolerable.

But over & above all special considerations is the one that a reply in such a case is necessarily an apologetic process, and that you have nothing to apologize for.

I dare say much of this repeats Henrietta.7 In what she has read to me I wholly agree.

[Enclosure]

Sketch of imaginary reply by Butler

Sir.

When I wrote &c last week I thought I knew all that was likely to be known abt Mr Darwin’s extraordy treatment of my book, but his letter to you makes some most remarkable additions to the strange story. Mr D. had told me that it “never occurred to him” to state &c.— Never occurred to him!! When now it seems that it not only occurred to him, but that he did state &c &c   Stated it in a printed preface, and afterwards, in some mysterious way, this statement disappeared from the proof! Perhaps Mr D. will complete the story &c &c. Sentences do not vanish out of a printed page by accident, only &c &c. He goes on to tell us that “it is an illusion to suppose it cd make any diffce &c &c” It might have been an illusion due to my ignorance but the details kindly given by Mr. D. now shew it to be a fact that it did make a diffce. If no diffce why was the sentence expunged?

If the excision was an accident it is of course needless for Mr D. to tell us that it had nothing to with Mr. Butler— Accidents do not usually need to be thus explained &c &c. &c. Nor is a great Naturalist the man we shd think likely wholly to forget(!) the act of cancelling his own deliberate statements

Then Mr. D. tells us that the addns. were made independently &c—   Strange that an author of distinction shd be so delightfully pliable in the hands of somebody else. Who this somebody else might be, whether Dr K.8 or &c &c we are not told.

And lastly Mr. D. is oblg. eno’ to say that I do not believe his delib. assertion &c. I have not to my knowledge adopted this severe estimate of Mr. D.’s veracity but certainly if Mr. D wanted to create the incredulity wh he is so polite as to attribute to me the best means of achieving that result wd. be to supply us with more of the explanations of wh he has given a sample in yr. columns of Saty last.

Footnotes

See letter from H. E. Litchfield, [1 February 1880]. For Samuel Butler’s letter, published in the Athenæum, 31 January 1880, see the letter to H. E. Litchfield, 1 February [1880], enclosure 1. Frederick Pollock lived at 24 Bryanston Street (Post Office London directory 1880).
Pollock had written an unsigned review of Erasmus Darwin in the Pall Mall Gazette, ([Pollock] 1879b); also an unsigned review of Evolution, old and new (Butler 1879) in the Saturday Review ([Pollock] 1879a).
When the second edition of Evolution, old and new was published, Butler added an appendix in which he discussed the reviews of the first edition (Butler 1882, pp. 385–94); he noted that the Saturday Review had attacked his book almost savagely (ibid., p. 389).
Litchfield alludes to the mythical ability of salamanders to be able to endure fire.
In his letter to the Athenæum, Butler had quoted from CD’s letter to him of 3 January 1880 as follows: ‘it never occurred to me to state that the article had been modified; but now I much regret that I did not do so’ (see letter to H. E. Litchfield, 1 February [1880], enclosure 1; for CD’s draft replies, see enclosures 2 and 3).
See the enclosure to this letter.
Ernst Krause was the co-author of Erasmus Darwin.

Bibliography

Butler, Samuel. 1879. Evolution, old and new: or, the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, as compared with that of Mr. Charles Darwin. London: Hardwicke and Bogue.

Butler, Samuel. 1882. Evolution, old and new; or, the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, as compared with that of Mr. Charles Darwin. 2d edition. London: David Bogue.

Erasmus Darwin. By Ernst Krause. Translated from the German by W. S. Dallas, with a preliminary notice by Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1879.

[Pollock, Frederick.] 1879a. Evolution, old and new. Saturday Review 47: 682–4.

[Pollock, Frederick.] 1879b. “Erasmus Darwin.” Pall Mall Gazette, 12 December 1879, p. 12.

Post Office London directory: Post-Office annual directory. … A list of the principal merchants, traders of eminence, &c. in the cities of London and Westminster, the borough of Southwark, and parts adjacent … general and special information relating to the Post Office. Post Office London directory. London: His Majesty’s Postmaster-General [and others]. 1802–1967.

Summary

Has shown S. Butler’s Athenæum letter to Frederick Pollock, who confirms RBL’s advice that it needs no answer. Sends an imaginary response by Butler.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-12448
From
Richard Buckley Litchfield
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
London, Bryanston St, 4
Source of text
DAR 92: B75–8, 81
Physical description
ALS 7pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12448,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12448.xml

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