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Darwin Correspondence Project

From G. J. Romanes   10 April 1878

18 Cornwall Terrace:

April 10, 1878.

Many thanks for your kind expressions of sympathy.1 When the sad event occurred I had some thoughts of sending you an announcement; but as you had scarcely ever seen my sister, I afterwards felt that you might think it superfluous in me to let you know.

The blow is indeed felt by us to be one of dire severity, the more so because we only had about a fortnight’s warning of its advent. My sister did not pass through much suffering, but there was something painfully pathetic about her death, not only because she was so young and had always been so strong, but also because the ties of affection by which she was bound to us, and we to her, were more than ordinarily tender. And when in her delirium she reverted to the time when our positions were reversed, and when by weeks and months of arduous heroism she saved my life by constant nursing—upon my word it was unbearable.2 The blank which her death has created in our small family is very distressing. She always used to be so proud of my work that I feel that half the pleasure of working will now be gone—but I do not know why I am running on like this. Of course it will give me every pleasure to go to Down before leaving for Scotland. If you have no preference about time, I suppose it would be best to go when you return home in May, as the onions might possibly be then ready for grafting.3 Unless, therefore, I hear from you to the contrary, I shall write again some time between the middle and end of May.

Footnotes

CD sent condolences on the death of Georgina Isabella Romanes, Romanes’s elder sister, in his letter to Romanes of 9 April [1878].
Georgina had nursed Romanes when he had typhoid fever in 1872–3 (E. D. Romanes 1896, pp. 9 and 70 n. 1).
Romanes visited Down on 18 May 1878 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)). From 27 April to 13 May 1878, CD and Emma Darwin visited William Erasmus Darwin in Southampton (‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). Romanes was carrying out grafting experiments in order to test CD’s hypothesis of pangenesis (see letter to G. J. Romanes, 9 April [1878] and n. 4).

Bibliography

Romanes, Ethel Duncan. 1896. The life and letters of George John Romanes M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. London, New York, and Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co.

Summary

Thanks for letter of sympathy.

Would like to visit in May.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-11469
From
George John Romanes
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
London, Cornwall Terrace, 18
Source of text
E. D. Romanes 1896, p. 70

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11469,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11469.xml

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