I have been reading several of the Reviews on the “Origin,” and it seems to me that you have assisted those who want to criticise you by your overstating the difficulties and objections.  Several of them quote your own words as the strongest arguments against you.

I think you told me Owen wrote the article in the Quarterly.  This seems to me hardly credible, as he speaks so much of Owen, quotes him as such a great authority, and I believe even calls him a profound philosopher, etc. etc.  Would Owen thus speak of himself?

Trusting your health is good, I remain, my dear Mr. Darwin, yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E.  May 24, 1862.

My dear Mr. Wallace,—­I write one line to thank you for your note and to say that the Bishop of Oxford[35] wrote the Quarterly Review (paid L60), aided by Owen.  In the Edinburgh Owen no doubt praised himself.  Mr. Maw’s Review in the Zoologist is one of the best, and staggered me in parts, for I did not see the sophistry of parts.  I could lend you any which you might wish to see; but you would soon be tired.  Hopkins and Pictet in France are two of the best.

I am glad you approve of my little Orchid book; but it has not been worth, I fear, the ten months it has cost me:  it was a hobby-horse, and so beguiled me.

I am sorry to hear that you are suffering from boils; I have often had fearful crops:  I hope that the doctors are right in saying that they are serviceable.

How puzzled you must be to know what to begin at.  You will do grand work, I do not doubt.

My health is, and always will be, very poor:  I am that miserable animal a regular valetudinarian.—­Yours very sincerely,

C. DARWIN.

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5 Westbourne Grove Terrace, W. August 8, 1862.

My dear Mr. Darwin,—­I sincerely trust that your little boy is by this time convalescent, and that you are therefore enabled to follow your favourite investigations with a more tranquil mind.

I heard a remark the other day which may not perhaps be new to you, but seemed to me a fact, if true, in your favour.  Mr. Ward (I think it was), a member of the Microscopical Society, mentioned as a fact noticed by himself with much surprise that “the muscular fibres of the whale were no larger than those of the bee!”—­an excellent indication of community of origin.

While looking at the ostriches the other day at the Gardens, it occurred to me that they were a case of special difficulty, as, inhabiting an ancient continent, surrounded by numerous enemies, how did their wings ever become abortive, and if they did so before the birds had attained their present gigantic size, strength and speed, how could they in the transition have maintained their existence?  I see Westwood in the Annals