Dear M^r. Darwin

Hal¹ has just brought me your note containing your slyly disparaging remarks on my beloved Tennyson—& quoting “as a gem”

‘And he meant, he said he meant, Perhaps he meant, or partly meant you well.’²

In the first place it was very mean of you to give the lines without the context shockingly Owenlike³

Secondly. The lines only convince me more than ever that Tennyson is quite master of his situation. Could you better render In words, the desire in the wife’s mind to do justice, to—her enemy I suppose for I have not read “Sea Dreams”, together with the conflicting feeling which yet possessed her of his insincerity? I am very pleased that Tennyson accredits the feminine mind with such a strong sense of justice.

I now refer to the book— I am grieved to find that a philosopher of your repute—should have damaged your reputation for accuracy so greatly as to tell me that the quotation was from “Enoch Arden” whereas it was from “Sea Dreams”— If the “facts?!” in the Origin of Species are of this sort—I agree with the Bishop of Oxford—⁴

Yours too sincerely | Henrietta Huxley

love to your dear wife & ask her for a screed.

New Year’s Day | 1865.