Letter from GEORGE PERKINS MARSH to SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD, dated April 4, 1848.
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Carlisle
Dear Baird
It is a rule with printer's devils to "follow copy, if it goes out of the window," and with skippers, "to follow orders, if it breaks owners." In obedience to the great principle involved in these maxims, I send you Cuvier by Adam's Express, according to your directions, though I well know that my compliance with your request will occasion you bankruptcy.
That insatiable cormorant Adams will demand for the
carriage of the parcel more
than thrice, yea, more than ten times, the original cost thereof, and thou will be
beggared by his exorbitance. Many harpies have I known in my day, but Adams
exceedeth them all. Koeppen, though by reason of
the multitude of his talk, a tiresome, is yet an instructive and an amusing
companion. Learned in historical fact, he cares nothing for the principles of
history or any other knowledge, and superficial observer as he is, in power of
lively & picturesque description he surpasses all other men.
Phillips must have been disappointed with my
collection of engravings, & I was ashamed of it, when I found how vastly
superior his own is.
I am glad you are well over your tning (scottice flitting) I suppose you
are Dane enough to understand that, "Three removes c" you know. I pray you next may
be into a wider field of fame & labour. Mrs Marsh is, I am sorry to say,
very ill. She has been running down for two months with obscure symptoms, &
has kept her bed for several days. I think her physician (D Wislizenus of New Mexican memory) is
embarrassed with the case, though he assures me he does not consider it alarming. We
have here a Deutscher, one Lischke, secretary of the Prussian legation who is de
plorably given to the shooting of little innocent (yea, and being vernivorous,
useful) birds, impaling of insects, disembowelling of fish, and pickling of
crustaceans. Shall I mention you to him as one similarly moon-struck, affected with
like barbarous propensities, and disposed to exchange bloody trophies?
Have you ever written to Mr Wheeler, & if not, why not? The love of all of us to all of you, and so farewell
Your sincere friendGeo P Marsh
References in this letter:
Frédéric Cuvier (1769-1832), a French naturalist and pioneer in comparative anatomy, developed a system of zoological classification. He is the author of Des dents de mannifere(1825), a catolog of the comparative anatomy collections at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris.
Adolph Louis Köeppen, a Danish professor of history who stayed with the Marshs in Washington.
Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, a college preparatory boarding school, was founded in 1778 by Samuel Phillips (1752-1802). Marsh attended the school in 1816.
Frederick Adolph Wislizenus (1810-1889), a German born physician, emigrated to the United States in 1835. He published a scientific account of his trip to Chihuahua, Mexico in Memoirs of a Tour to Northern Mexico, Connected with Colonel Doniphan's Expedition in 1846 and 1847. (Washington: Tippin and Streeper, 1848). In 1850 he married Lucy Crane, Caroline Crane Marsh's sister; they settled in St. Louis where he practiced medicine.
The Rev. Dr. John Wheeler (1789-1862) was president of the University of Vermont from 1833 to 1848. He offered Baird the chair of Chemistry and Natural History in December 1847.