From G. H. Darwin to W. D. Whitney 21 December 1875
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington S.E.R.
Dec 21. 75
My dear Sir,
Both my Father & I were very sorry to have missed seeing you when in England.1 I hope I may be able to visit the U.S again some day & then we may perhaps meet, even if you do not visit England again.
Max Müller sent the part of the ‘Chips’ to my Father, which contains his defence(!) against your attacks.2 I confess that I found it so intolerably dull that I could not read it, but I looked thro’ a great part of it. I am a little sorry that you are going to write in answer, as I think that very few will trouble themselves to read it (Max Müller) & those who do so will see that it is the work of a man out of himself with anger. I of course did not perceive the various cases of injustice to your linguistic views to which you refer; these coming ex cathedrâ must be very galling. I confess I felt it a little hard on myself to be dragged into the foreground & chaffed—rather savagely however.3
In my Contemp. article I thought I had made it pretty clear that I wrote as an ignoramus & only intended to represent your views, with such comments as ordinary intelligence without linguistic knowledge wd. allow me.4 It was also unjust both to you & me to coolly assume that you have manoeuvred to ‘get hold of the pen of the Son fondly hoping it would carry the weight of the father’s’—sous entendu that I am rather a fool & you rather a knave.5 One does not see the end of this kind of polemic & if it were I myself, I think I should have been rather inclined to allow time to cool the heats of controversy & bring forth the just view of the case. However it is very hard to put oneself in another’s place, & I daresay I misjudge the difficulty of sitting down under the attacks of one bearing the name of great authority
Believe me | Yours faithfully | Geo. H Darwin
My Father dictates as follows to you:
“There is a sentence in the Chips in wh. M.M expresses great satisfaction at having received a letter from me, and which seems to imply that I had said that I thought that you were wrong in the controversy & he Max Muller right, whereas there was nothing whatever in the letter which could bear any interpretation of this kind”.6
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Max Müller, Friedrich. 1867–75. Chips from a German workshop. 4 vols. London: Longmans, Green.
Whitney, William Dwight. 1875. Are languages institutions? Contemporary Review 25 (1874–5): 713–32.
Summary
Müller has sent Chips [from a German workshop (1867–75)] and a boring defence against WDW’s attack. GHD feels he is maligned for using the weight of CD’s name in his Contemporary Review article. CD says Müller has misinterpreted a letter from CD as supporting him in his controversy with WDW.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10314
- From
- George Howard Darwin
- To
- William Dwight Whitney
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Yale University Library: Manuscripts and Archives (William Dwight Whitney Family Papers (MS 555): Box 23, folder 631 1875 Dec. 18-24)
- Physical description
- ALS 5pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10314,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10314.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23