(Received with a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley, a few days after Dr. Wallace’s death.)

Addison somewhere says that modesty sets off every talent which a man can be possessed of.  This was manifestly true of Alfred Russel Wallace.  When, for instance, honours were bestowed upon him, he accepted or rejected them with the same good-humour and unspoilable modesty.  To Prof.  E.B.  Poulton, whose invitation for the forthcoming Encaemia had been conveyed in Prof.  Bartholomew Price’s letter, he wrote: 

Godalming.  May 28, 1889.

My dear Mr. Poulton,—­I have just received from Prof.  B. Price the totally unexpected offer of the honorary degree of D.C.L. at the coming Commemoration, and you will probably be surprised and disgusted to hear that I have declined it.  I have to thank you for your kind offer of hospitality during the ceremony, but the fact is, I have at all times a profound distaste of all public ceremonials, and at this particular time that distaste is stronger than ever.  I have never recovered from the severe illness I had a year and a half ago, and it is in hopes of restoring my health that I have let my cottage here and have taken another at Parkstone, Dorset, into which I have arranged to move on Midsummer Day.  To add to my difficulties, I have work at examination papers for the next two or three weeks, and also a meeting (annual) of our Land Nationalisation Society, so that the work of packing my books and other things and looking after the plants which I have to move from my garden will have to be done in a very short time.  Under these circumstances it would be almost impossible for me to rush away to Oxford except under absolute compulsion, and to do so would be to render a ceremony which at any time would be a trial, a positive punishment.

Really the greatest kindness my friends can do me is to leave me in peaceful obscurity, for I have lived so secluded a life that I am more and more disinclined to crowds of any kind.  I had to submit to it in America, but then I felt exceptionally well, whereas now I am altogether weak and seedy and not at all up to fatigue or excitement.—­Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.  Prof.  Poulton pressed him to reconsider his decision, and he reluctantly gave way.

* * * * *

Godalming.  June 2, 1889.

My dear Mr. Poulton,—­I am exceedingly obliged by your kind letters, and I will say at once that if the Council of the University should again ask me to accept the degree, to be conferred in the autumn, as you propose, I could not possibly refuse it.  At the same time I hope you will not in any way urge it upon them, as I really feel myself too much of an amateur in Natural History and altogether too ignorant (I left school—­a bad one—­finally, at fourteen) to receive honours from a great University.  But I will say no more about that.—­Yours very faithfully,