I have finished the first volume, and am half-way through the first
proof of the second volume, of my confounded book, which half kills me
by fatigue, and which I much fear will quite kill me in your good
estimation.
If you have leisure I should much like a little news of you and your
doings and your family.--Ever yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
* * * * *
_Holly House, Barking, E. November 24, 1870._
Dear Darwin,--Your letter gave me very great pleasure. We still agree, I
am sure, on nineteen points out of twenty, and on the twentieth I am not
inconvincible. But then I must be convinced by facts and arguments, not
by high-handed ridicule such as Claparede's.
I hope you see the difference between such criticisms as his, and that
in the last number of the _North American Review_, where my last chapter
is really criticised, point by point; and though I think some of it very
weak, I admit that some is very strong, and almost converts me from the
error of my ways.
As to your new book, I am sure it will not make me think less highly of
you than I do, unless you do, what you have never done yet, ignore
facts and arguments that go against you.
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