_predicted_ Madagascar moth and
_Angraecum sesquipedale_.

I shall be glad to know whether I have done it satisfactorily to you,
and hope you will not be so very sparing of criticism as you usually
are.

I hope you are getting on well with your great book. I hear a rumour
that we are to have _one_ vol. of it about Christmas.

I quite forget whether I told you that I have a little boy, now three
months old, and have named him Herbert Spencer (having had a brother
Herbert). I am now staying chiefly in the country, at Hurstpierpoint,
but come up to town once a month at least. You may address simply,
"Hurstpierpoint, Sussex."

Hoping your health is tolerable and that all your family are well,
believe me, dear Darwin, yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

_Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. October 12 and 13, 1867._

My dear Wallace,--I ordered the journal a long time ago, but by some
oversight received it only yesterday and read it. You will think my
praise not worth having from being so indiscriminate, but if I am to
speak the truth, I must say I admire every word.

You have just touched on the points which I particularly wished to see
noticed. I am glad you had the courage to take up _Angraecum_[62] after
the Duke's attack; for I believe the principle in this case may be
widely applied. I like the figure, but I wish the artist had drawn a
better sphinx.

With respect to beauty, your remarks on hideous objects and on flowers
not being made beautiful except when of practical use to them strike me
as very good.

On this one point of beauty, I can hardly think that the Duke was quite
candid. I have used in the concluding paragraph of my present book
precisely the same argument as you have, even bringing in the
bulldog,[63] with respect to variations not having been specially
ordained. Your metaphor of the river[64] is new to me, and admirable;
but your other metaphor, in which you compare classification and complex
machines, does not seem to me quite appropriate, though I cannot point
out what seems deficient. The point which seems to me strong is that all
naturalists admit that there is a _natural_ classification, and it is
this which descent explains. I wish you had insisted a little more
against the _North British_[65] reviewer assuming that each variation
which appears is a strongly marked one; though by implication you have
made this _very_, plain. Nothing in your wh