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From L. C. Wedgwood to Elizabeth Darwin   [7 March 1872 or later]1

had it hav’nt you?

Are not you glad that wretched claimant is to be tried for perjury? That was an amusing acct. of his meeting with his friends in the D. News.2

Mamma & I are going to Down Ampney next week.3

What heavenly spring weather we have been having, weather in which it is perfect bliss to sit & bask in the sun with closed eyes

Was your horticultural fête pretty?

Yrs. dear Bessy | Lucy Wedgwood

Will you tell Uncle Charles I did find some parallel ridges on the chalk downs, some near the bottom of some chalk rubbish thrown out of a pit & grassed over, some at the top of a steep field, which may have been wholly made by sheep.4 They did not run into each other much, & there were not many worm casts in either place. I enclose the rough sketch I made on the spot, but it does not shew much. I want to go again & xplore further some day.

I see my scrawls are so slight as hardly to be worth sending

[Enclosure]

[2 SKETCHES?]

CD annotations

1.1 had … pretty? 5.1] crossed red crayon
Top of second page: ‘Worms’ added red crayon

Footnotes

1
The date is established by the reference to articles in the Daily News (see n. 2, below).
2
The Tichborne claimant, who claimed to be Roger Tichborne, was charged with perjury after his court case was stopped by the jury in March 1872. The perjury charge and an account of a meeting of the claimant’s supporters were reported in the Daily News, 7 March 1872, pp. 6–7.
3
Wedgwood’s mother was Caroline Sarah Wedgwood. Her sister Margaret Susan married Arthur Charles Vaughan Williams, vicar of Down Ampney, in 1869.
4
CD’s interest in the remains of ancient furrows related to his work on earthworms (see, for example, Correspondence vol. 19, letter from Francis Wedgwood to Emma Darwin, [before 4 January 1871] and n. 2).

Bibliography

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 26 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Summary

P.S. Information on earthworm activity on chalk downs, including two rough sketches for CD.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-7127
From
Lucy Caroline Wedgwood/Lucy Caroline Harrison
To
Elizabeth (Bessy) (Lizzy) Darwin
Sent from
unstated
Source of text
DAR 181: 58
Physical description
3pp inc †(by CD), 2 sketches

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7127,” accessed on 21 October 2019, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-7127.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 20

letter

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