Blessings on you and your
publisher for having the pages cut and gilded.
As for the dedication, putting quite aside how far I deserve what you
say, it seems to me decidedly the best expressed dedication which I have
ever met.
The reading will probably last me a month, for I dare not have it read
aloud, as I know that it will set me thinking.
I see that many points will interest me greatly. When I have finished,
if I have anything particular to say, I will write again. Accept my
cordial thanks. The dedication is a thing for my children's children to
be proud of.--Yours most sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
* * * * *
_9 St. Mark's Crescent, N.W. March 10, 1869._
Dear Darwin,--Thanks for your kind note. I could not persuade Mr.
Macmillan to cut more than twenty-five copies for my own friends, and he
even seemed to think this a sign of most strange and barbarous taste.
Mr. Weir's paper on the kinds of larvae, etc., eaten or rejected by
insectivorous birds was read at the last meeting of the Entomological
Society and was most interesting and satisfactory.
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