Joseph McCabe an Ernst Haeckel, London, [20. Oktober 1905]
16, Elm Grove.
Cricklewood.
London N.W.
20. Octb. 1905.
Dear Professor Haeckel,
I am so sorry to hear you are ill. It was very kind of you to write to me in the circumstances. You must keep alive for some time yet & let us celebrate your 80th birth-day at least. You are needed in Germany, if not Europe. However, things are moving rapidly in England. I get audiences of thousands even in small places.
Now, I want to know whether you are well enough to help me in the following || matter. I have just translated your Entwickelung-Gedanke (I am sorry the R. P. A. would not publish it), & I am now requested (as the “apostle of Prof. Haeckel”, as I am called) to bring out a fine edition of Bölsche’s “Ernst Haeckel”. One of the best publishers here has taken it up, & we want to make it worthy of you- a 12/6 book at least. I will add an introduction & a chapter on your latest achievements & successes, & we want to illustrate it well. I have proposed to the publishers to obtain permission to include || in it your plates of the Protomyxa aurantiac & the Farn-Wald from your Natürliche Schöpfungs-Geschichte & the Frontispiece-plate & “Tree of Life” from your Anthropogenie, together with a few illustrations from your Kunst-Formen in der Natur & photos from your Insulinde. I hope you will not disapprove of my taste! We want also a good photo of you, of your house (or family), the University, & any others of biographical interest.
What I want to know is – Is it possible for you to send me (or direct a friend, || Fräulein Haeckel, to send me) a few photos or sketches of the latter type, & also the information which is necessary to make Bölsche’s life complete? I cannot at present get the publisher to pay my expenses to go to Jena, & in fact I am so busy lecturing that it would be difficult. But if it is too much to ask of you to send me the material I need I must pay a flying visit to Jena for one or two days. We must, the publisher says, have “a perfect book”- & I promise you it will be a fine one! Will you please tell me as soon as you can if it is possible for you to have the information & photographs (except what I can get in books) I need sent to me?
Yours very sincerely
Joseph McCabe