I am extremely much obliged for your letter, which I can compare only to a plum-pudding, so full it is of good things. I have been rash about the cats ("Cats with blue eyes are invariably deaf," 'Origin of Species,' edition i. page 12.): yet I spoke on what seemed to me, good authority. The Rev. W.D. Fox gave me a list of cases of various foreign breeds in which he had observed the correlation, and for years he had vainly sought an exception. A French paper also gives numerous cases, and one very curious case of a kitten which GRADUALLY lost the blue colour in its eyes and as gradually acquired its power of hearing. I had not heard of your uncle, Mr. Kirby's case (William Kirby, joint author with Spence, of the well-known 'Introduction to Entomology,' 1818.) (whom I, for as long as I can remember, have venerated) of care in breeding cats. I do not know whether Mr. Kirby was your uncle by marriage, but your letters show me that you ought to have Kirby blood in your veins, and that if you had not taken to languages you would have been a first-rate naturalist.
I sincerely hope that you will be able to carry out your intention of writing on the "Birth, Life, and Death of Words." Anyhow, you have a capital title, and some think this the most difficult part of a book. I remember years ago at the Cape of Good Hope, Sir J. Herschel saying to me, I wish some one would treat language as Lyell has treated geology. What a linguist you must be to translate the Koran! Having a vilely bad head for languages, I feel an awful respect for linguists.
I do not know whether my brother-in-law, Hensleigh Wedgwood's 'Etymological Dictionary' would be at all in your line; but he treats briefly on the genesis of words; and, as it seems to me, very ingeniously. You kindly say that you would communicate any facts which might occur to you, and I am sure that I should be most grateful. Of the multitude of letters which I receive, not one in a thousand is like yours in value.
With my cordial thanks, and apologies for this untidy letter written in haste, pray believe me, my dear Sir,
Yours sincerely obliged, CH. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. November 20th [1860].
... I have not had heart to read Phillips ('Life on the Earth.') yet, or a tremendous long hostile review by Professor Bowen in the 4to Mem. of the American Academy of Sciences. ("Remarks on the latest form of the Development Theory." By Francis Bowen, Professor of Natural Religion and Moral Philosophy, at Harvard University. 'American Academy of Arts and Sciences,' vol. viii.) (By the way, I hear Agassiz is going to thunder against me in the next part of the 'Contributions.') Thank you for telling me of the sale of the 'Origin,' of which I had not heard. There will be some time, I presume, a new edition, and I especially want your advice on one point, and you know I think you the wisest of men, and I shall be ABSOLUTELY GUIDED BY YOUR ADVICE. It has occurred to me, that it would PERHAPS be a good plan to put a set of notes (some twenty to forty or fifty) to the 'Origin,' which now has none, exclusively devoted to errors of my reviewers. It has occurred to me that where a reviewer has erred, a common reader might err. Secondly, it will show the reader that he must not trust implicitly to reviewers. Thirdly, when any special fact has been attacked, I should like to defend it. I would show no sort of anger. I enclose a mere rough specimen, done without any care or accuracy—done from memory alone—to be torn up, just to show the sort of thing that has occurred to me. WILL YOU DO ME THE GREAT KINDNESS TO CONSIDER THIS WELL?
It seems to me it would have a good effect, and give some confidence to the reader. It would [be] a horrid bore going through all the reviews.
Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN.
[Here follow samples of foot-notes, the references to volume and page being left blank. It will be seen that in some cases he seems to have forgotten that he was writing foot-notes, and to have continued as if writing to Lyell:—