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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Emma Darwin   [23 April 1851]

[Malvern]

Wednesday

My dear dearest Emma

I pray God Fanny’s note may have prepared you. She went to her final sleep most tranquilly, most sweetly at 12 oclock today. Our poor dear dear child has had a very short life but I trust happy, & God only knows what miseries might have been in store for her. She expired without a sigh. How desolate it makes one to think of her frank cordial manners. I am so thankful for the daguerreotype.1 I cannot remember ever seeing the dear child naughty. God bless her. We must be more & more to each other my dear wife— Do what you can to bear up & think how invariably kind & tender you have been to her.— I am in bed not very well with my stomach. When I shall return I cannot yet say. My own poor dear dear wife.

C. Darwin

Footnotes

The daguerreotype, dated 1849, is at Down House. It is reproduced as the frontispiece to this volume.

Summary

Tells of Anne’s death.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-1412
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Emma Wedgwood/Emma Darwin
Sent from
Malvern
Source of text
DAR 210.13: 28
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1412,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1412.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5

letter