CH.  DARWIN.

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9 St. Mark’s Crescent.  August 30, [1868?].

Dear Darwin,—­I was very sorry to hear you had been so unwell again, and hope you will not exert yourself to write me such long letters.  Darwinianism was in the ascendant at Norwich (I hope you do not dislike the word, for we really must use it), and I think it rather disgusted some of the parsons, joined with the amount of advice they received from Hooker and Huxley.  The worst of it is that there are no opponents left who know anything of natural history, so that there are none of the good discussions we used to have.  G.H.  Lewes seems to me to be making a great mistake in the Fortnightly, advocating many distinct origins for different groups, and even, if I understand him, distinct origins for some allied groups, just as the anthropologists do who make the red man descend from the orang, the black man from the chimpanzee—­or rather the Malay and orang one ancestor, the negro and chimpanzee another.  Vogt told me that the Germans are all becoming converted by your last book.

I am certainly surprised that you should find so much evidence against protection having checked the acquirement of bright colour in females; but I console myself by presumptuously hoping that I can explain your facts, unless they are derived from the very groups on which I chiefly rest—­birds and insects.  There is nothing necessarily requiring protection in females; it is a matter of habits.  There are groups in which both sexes require protection in an exactly equal degree, and others (I think) in which the male requires most protection, and I feel the greatest confidence that these will ultimately support my view, although I do not yet know the facts they may afford.

Hoping you are in better health, believe me, dear Darwin, yours faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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9 St. Mark’s Crescent, N.W.  September 5, [1868?].

Dear Darwin,—­It will give me great pleasure to accept your kind invitation for next Saturday and Sunday, and my wife would very much like to come too, and will if possible.  Unfortunately, there is a new servant coming that very day, and there is a baby at the mischievous age of a year and a quarter to be left in somebody’s care; but I daresay it will be managed somehow.

I will drop a line on Friday to say if we are coming the time you mention.—­Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

Friday.

My dear Darwin,—­My wife has arranged to accompany me to-morrow, and we hope to be at Orpington Station at 5.44, as mentioned by you.—­Very truly yours,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E.  September 16, 1868.

My dear Wallace,—­The beetles have arrived, and cordial thanks:  I never saw such wonderful creatures in my life.  I was thinking of something quite different.  I shall wait till my son Frank returns, before soaking and examining them.  I long to steal the box, but return it by this post, like a too honest man.