Please do not trouble yourself to answer this, and believe me,

Yours most sincerely, S. Butler.

This elicited a second letter from Darwin:-

Down, Bromley, Kent. October 6.

My dear Sir,--I thank you sincerely for your kind and frank letter, which has interested me greatly. What a singular and varied career you have already run. Did you keep any journal or notes in New Zealand? For it strikes me that with your rare powers of writing you might make a very interesting work descriptive of a colonist's life in New Zealand.

I return your printed letter, which you might like to keep. It has amused me, especially the part in which you criticise yourself. To appreciate the letter fully I ought to have read the bishop's letter, which seems to have been very rich.

You tell me not to answer your note, but I could not resist the wish to thank you for your letter.

With every good wish, believe me, my dear Sir,