My dear Huxley,

Many thanks for your biology, which I have read.  It was a real stroke of genius to think of such a plan.  Lord, how I wish that I had gone through such a course.

Ever yours,

Charles Darwin.

A large portion of his time and energy was occupied in the organisation of this course of teaching for teachers, and its elaboration before being launched on a larger scale in October, when the Biological Department of the Jermyn Street school was transferred to the new buildings at South Kensington, fitted with laboratories which were to excite his friend Dr. Dohrn’s envy.  But he was also at work upon his share of the “Science Primers,” so far as his still uncertain health allowed.  This and the affairs of the British Association are the subject of several letters to Sir Henry Roscoe and Dr. Tyndall.]

26 Abbey Place, April 8, 1872.

My dear Roscoe,

Many thanks for your kind letter of welcome.  My long rest has completely restored me.  As my doctor told me, I was sound, wind and limb, and had merely worn myself out.  I am not going to do that again, and you see that I have got rid of the School Board.  It was an awful incubus!

Oddly enough I met the Ashtons in the Vatican, and heard about your perplexities touching Oxford.  I should have advised you to do as you have done.  I think that you have a great piece of work to do at Owens College, and that you will do it.  If you had gone to Oxford you would have sacrificed all the momentum you have gained in Manchester; and would have had to begin de novo, among conditions which, I imagine, it is very hard for a non-University man to appreciate and adjust himself to.

I like the look of the “Primers” (of which Macmillan has sent me copies to-day) very much, and shall buckle to at mine as soon as possible.  I am very glad you did not wait for me.  I remained in a very shaky condition up to the middle of March, and could do nothing.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

The wife unites with me in kind regards to Mrs. Roscoe and yourself.

Morthoe, Ilfracombe, North Devon, September 9, 1872.

My dear Tyndall,

I was very glad to have news of you, and to hear that you are vigorous.

My outing hitherto has not been very successful, so far as the inward man is concerned at least, for the weather has been good enough.  But I have been worried to death with dyspepsia and the hyperchondriacal bedevilments that follow in its train, until I am seriously thinking of returning to town to see if the fine air of St. John’s Wood (as the man says in “Punch”) won’t enable me to recover from the effects of the country.

I wish I were going with you to Yankee Land, not to do any lecturing, God forbid! but to be a quiet spectator in a corner of the enthusiastic audiences.  I am as lazy as a dog, and the role of looker-on would just suit me.  However, I have a good piece of work to do in organising my new work at South Kensington.