SPECIMEN, SPECIWOMEN

Re Daniel Harris’ review of “Darwin” (July 26):

Any critic who demonstrates that Darwin “was so immersed in the jargon of science that he spoke about the prospect of marriage in the most austere and unsentimental terms possible” by citing Darwin’s statement that “as for a wife, that most interesting specimen in the whole series of vertebrate animals, Providence only know(s) whether I shall ever capture one or be able to feed her if caught” would also prove Mark Twain to be ruthless and humorless by Twain’s “My mother was the kindest person I ever knew. She heated the water in which she drowned kittens.”

MICHAEL MAHON, HEMET