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Summary
CD and his family have come to the seashore, driven from home by scarlet fever at Down, death [of Charles Waring Darwin], and other family illness. Sorry to miss seeing JSH.
Would be grateful to hear his objections to CD’s species speculations.
Transcription
Norfolk House | Shanklin | Is. of Wight
Augst 4th.
My dear Henslow
Your letter of the 31st has been forwarded to me here & received only this morning.f1 I grieve most sincerely to miss your visit, but we do not return home till the 13th. or 14th. & my wife, perhaps not till later; if the sea does my eldest girl good.f2 We were driven from home by Scarlet Fever, which caused the death of our poor dear little youngest child & was very bad in the village. We had other & bad illness in the House. As yet the sea has not done much for us.—
I the more regret that we shall not see you at Down at the time proposed, (but I hope at some other time) as I shd. be extremely glad (& grateful) to hear your objections to my species speculations.f3
The difficulties which I can see are many & grave. I am now writing a pretty full abstract of all my notions on this subject.—
My dear Henslow | Your old affectionate pupil | C. Darwin
P.S. | I want to beg a favour of you, which will cost you writing a note, viz can you advise me what I ought to allow my eldest son who goes to X Coll. in October per annum to cover all his expence whatever.—f4 I can afford & shd. wish to give him a liberal allowance, but not to encourage extravagance.
Footnotes
- f1
- Henslow’s letter has not been found.
- f2
- CD returned to Down on 13 August 1858 (‘Journal’; Appendix II); Emma and Henrietta Emma Darwin remained until 19 August (Emma Darwin’s diary).
- f3
- See letter from J. D. Hooker, 31 July 1858. Henslow visited Down in November 1858 (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 27 [November 1858]).
- f4
- Henslow’s son George had graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge earlier in the year. It is not known what Henslow advised, but according to CD’s Account book (Down House MS), £100 was paid into William Erasmus Darwin’s account on 1 January 1859.