TO PROF. POULTON
Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. January 26, 1909.
My dear Poulton,—I had a delightful two hours at the Museum on Saturday morning, as Mr. Rothschild brought from Tring several of his glass-bottomed drawers with his finest new New Guinea butterflies. They were a treat! I never saw anything more lovely and interesting!...
As to your very kind and pressing invitation,[37] I am sorry to be obliged to decline it. I cannot remain more than one day or night away from home, without considerable discomfort, and all the attractions of your celebration are, to me, repulsions....
My lecture, even as it will be published in the Fortnightly, will be far too short for exposition of all the points I wish to discuss, and I hope to occupy myself during this year in saying all I want to say in a book (of a wider scope) which is already arranged for. One of the great points, which I just touched on in the lecture, is to show that all that is usually considered the waste of Nature—the enormous number produced in proportion to the few that survive—was absolutely essential in order to secure the variety and continuity of life [pg 089] through all the ages, and especially of that one line of descent which culminated in man. That, I think, is a subject no one has yet dealt with.—Yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
TO PROF. POULTON
Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. March 1, 1909.
Dear Poulton,— ... I am glad that Lankester has replied to the almost disgraceful Centenary article in the Times. But it is an illustration of the widespread mischief the Mutationists, etc., are doing. I have no doubt, however, it will all come right in the end, though the end may be far off, and in the meantime we must simply go on, and show, at every opportunity, that Darwinism actually does explain the whole fields of phenomena that they do not even attempt to deal with, or even approach....—Yours very truly,