Woodhouse
April 10th. 1834—
My Dear Charles,
Excuse this familiar address It would hurt me & I believe
you not less if I used any other, I will therefore offer no further Apology—
Though I do not write often (this being I am afraid my third Letter only since you left
us) & though I do not hear directly from you, I do not fail to make frequent
enquiries about you from your Sisters, & have hitherto, as I trust I shall
continue to be, been constantly gratified by the most satisfactory reports, though your
travels have not been unattended with Perils & hardships, which, if I know you
at all, I rather think will not make them less agreeable to you, even when they are
taking place; & we can all enjoy the remembrance of dangers &
difficulties when they are surmounted however little we have liked them when actually
taking place or however ill we may have supported them— You have therefore yet
a Pleasure to come which I trust I shall in some degree partake of, in hearing you
recount some of your adventures; And as we have now enter'd upon the third year since
you left England I shall soon begin to try to count, like a School boy before the
Holidays, how long it will be before I may look for that Pleasure— And really
my good fellow I do think that you have now indulged your rambling Propensity as much as
is reasonable or good for any moderate Man, & I am anxiously hoping to hear you
are thinking of returning home, not a word of which has yet been whisper'd—
Habit is second Nature & I am afraid if you remain at Sea & on such an
amusing expedition, (as it is to you at least,) you will acquire too great a fondness
for rambling, & never again be content to sit down quietly amongst your Country
Neighbours & be satisfied with the tame sport of Pheasant & Partridge
Shooting—which I take this opportunity of telling you is by no means improved;
on the Woodhouse domain at least, since you partook of it— The alteration in
the Game act by which it is now permitted to be publicly sold has not answered the
expectation formed of it in preventing Poaching, but on the contrary I am afraid tends
to promote it— Besides this I believe I have had a d——d
Rogue for a Keeper, & consequently have had very little Game the last season.
Fortunately I have not had many Sportsmen with me, as William has been absent the whole
Winter, either with his Regt. at Dorchester or in Warwickshire
& Leicestershire hunting—for which I am afraid his passion is rather
upon the encrease. Poor Francis has been here alone, & by means of his Friends
has had a great deal of hunting & shooting, & may now possibly cross
you, as he has at last got a Commission in the 63rd.
Regt. which is at Madras, where he will proceed immediately to
join it—& his brother being there makes that station more acceptable
than it would have been otherwise. You will be pleased to hear that we continue to
receive the most satisfactory accounts from Arthur, though he does not write so often or
so fully as we should like to hear from him—still all he writes is good, his
health is good, he makes no sort of complaints & seems perfectly satisfied with
his Situation & the Country— which in one letter he says would do very
well if it was not quite so far from England— This I think is as small an
objection as he could well make & one which we should have been hurt if he had
not discover'd. The meeting between him & Francis I can imagine will be cordial
& delightful, & if you could only be of the Party it certainly would be
most complete— When we last heard, which is not very lately, he was at
Cuddalore, a very healthy good station abt. 100 Miles south East
I think of Madras, near the Coast & very near Ponticherry— One of the
Cunliffes who is now in England was station'd there several Years & speaks very
well of it, & amongst other things says it affords excellent shooting &
Boar hunting, which you know will be no trifling recommendation to it in Arthurs
Eyes— By the bye I was very sorry to hear from your Sister that you had lost
your Gun which I fear is hardly to be well replaced where you are. If you ever see
Cuddalore however I have little doubt but a Gun will be found, & that you will
have some shooting again together— What would I not give to be of such a
Party—but it is too late—I am getting very hobbling
& unless you come here soon fear I shall never have the Pleasure of
rating you again anywhere or shooting— Your Father is looking very
well & I believe is very well, but like others gets older &
considerably worse upon his legs than when you left, which is indeed the only difference
worth noticing I observe in him— But your Sisters of course tell you every
thing relating to your own Family better than I can & I hope frequently They
also I dare say, for Ladies excel in that, (& indeed I might add that yours do
in most things) amuse you with constant accounts of every event which occurs in this
Country—& a Newspaper, which must be a great treat, now & then
lets you into all the secrets in England worth knowing. Our Friends the Ministers do not
go on quite as I could wish they would, i.e I think they do not do enough, &
Lord Grey & Mr. Stanley think rather too
much of their order. There was a fine row all through the Country as you no doubt
have heard when the Elections took place, & in this Tory County it was pretty
well to get one County Member who at least calls
him self a Whig— I voted
agst. him because I doubted his Professions.— We had a
sharp contest also for Denbighshire, where Biddulph came in beating Ld.
Kenyon's Son in a canter— All this I am sorry to say did not pass without
creating some ill blood, which however I think is cooling considerably. But a truce to a
tale which you must have heard so often— And indeed I dont know to what I can
turn without being pretty sure that your Sisters have anticipated me, & I
believe I must be satisfied, though my letter is ever so barren & dull, if it
tends to shew you my good intention & that I have not forgot you, & this
at least I do flatter myself it will require little ability to convince you
of— We have had a great Mortality in the Neighbourhood since you
left— beginning with poor Mrs. Mathew—since whom two
of the Miss Sparlings, Miss Letitia Kynaston, Mrs. Bourke, Young Edwards
of Ness & last of all J. Mytton Esqr have
fallen— The two latter in the course of last Week only— Edwards of a
decline & Mytton worn out by debauchery of every kind—the miserable
remains of an ill spent Life—& it is certainly rather a good thing as
well for himself as for his Friends that he is gone, for all hope of any alteration in
him for the better was quite out of the question, & he dragg'd on a miserable
& disgraceful existence, first in one Gaol & then in another, &
rarely sober enough to say that he was in his right Senses. Notwithstanding all this
there are some few who pretend to regret him & who would think me very unfeeling
for what I have said of him— I am glad to hear that his poor Wife has a very
ample Jointure & that his Children are all pretty well provided for—
No thanks to him, it was so settled when he married, or they would not have had a
shilling & many of his debts I hear will now never be paid— Of
Weddings I cannot recollect any fresh except Miss Charlotte Kenyon to J. Hill
which I dare say has already been reported. Sarah & Fanny are now quite old
steady Wives, & both, you will be glad to hear, are I believe as happy as any
two wives in England— Sarah what they call pick'd her Calf a long time ago & I have not yet heard is likely to produce
another— Poor Fan however was brt. to bed of a Girl
last Spring & suffer'd so severely after, that she has been in a very precarious
state, but is now I think, thanks to your Father's care & skill, recovering
fast— Mrs. O— & my two Girls, for Miss Emma
is now what they call come out, have lately been twice at your Father's for
Ball<s> the last for a Charity Ball for the Infirmar<y>
whose Funds are rather low— I was not o<f> the Party, but I hear
amongst others they me<t> your Friend young Eyton there & liked
him much— I also met him some time ago at Col Leighton's & was much
pleased with him; but I dare say he is one of your correspondents so I will let him
speak for himself—
I go on here in my little Forest much as usual but am rather more of a Fixture,
& am now rather put out of my way to be obliged to take Francis to Town to equip
& start him for India, which I suppose I must do in about a Week, as I have
almost engaged his Passage to embark I believe at Gravesend before the end of the
Month— How I do wish you may fall in with him somewhere— He is I am
glad to say a good deal improved & steadier, & I know you will give him
some good advice if you come across him. I do not feel that I have any single thing to
tell you that can justify me for boring you with a longer Letter, nor indeed that what I
have written can repay you for the trouble of the perusal, except in so far as it may
accomplish my object by assuring you that nothing would give me more pleasure than to
see you again under this roof—& that I remain most sincerely &
affectionately Yours | Wm. Owen
I had forgot what I think I hardly need have express'd the most anxious &
sincere good wishes of all my Ladies old & Young for your welfare & safe
return.
May the 1st. All well at home so we do not write this month
yr affecte C. Darwin
