My dear Darwin,
I am very glad to see your handwriting (in ink) again, and none the less on account of the pretty words into which it was shaped.
It is a great pleasure to me that you like the article, for it was written very hurriedly, and I did not feel sure when I had done that I had always rightly represented your views.
Hang the two scalps up in your wigwam!
Flourens I could have believed anything of, but how a man of Kolliker's real intelligence and ability could have so misunderstood the question is more than I can comprehend.
It will be a thousand pities, however, if any review interferes with your saying something on the subject yourself. Unless it should give you needless work I heartily wish you would.
Everybody tells me I am looking so exceedingly well that I am ashamed to say a word to the contrary. But the fact is, I get no exercise, and a great deal of bothering work on our Commission's Cruise; and though much fatter (indeed a regular bloater myself), I am not up to the mark. Next year I will have a real holiday. [At the end of the year, as so often, he went off for a ploy with Tyndall, this time into Derbyshire, walking vigorously over the moors.]
I am a bachelor, my wife and belongings being all at that beautiful place, Margate. When I came back I found them all looking so seedy that I took them off bag and baggage to that, as the handiest place, before a week was over. They are wonderfully improved already, my wife especially being abundantly provided with her favourite east wind. Your godson is growing a very sturdy fellow, and I begin to puzzle my head with thinking what he is and what he is not to be taught.
Please to remember me very kindly to Mrs. Darwin, and believe me, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.