From Charles Warren Stoddard 11 April 1870
St Francisco Col
1870 11— April
Charles Darwin. M.A.
My dear Sir
Your profound and vigorous volumes have given me a new interest in life and I feel like thanking you personall for them. When visiting the Sandwich Islands (in 1869) I re-read them with a new interest awakened by the singular freaks of Nature over there.1 A California peach stone will sprout, develop into a flourishing tree, blossom and give every promise of fruit in those Islands, but the blossoms fall and there has so far been no fruit produced from one. Geraniums and some few other hardy plants thrive in portions of the islands but refuse to blossom at all in the richest soil of other parts of the same Island.
There are a few blonds among the straight-haired Islanders. And I have seen there a leprous woman who had communicated the leprosy to three husbands in succession while she still showed no signs of the plague herself.2 Will you not come over and see us some day we shall welcome you heartily.
I shall be very proud of your favor if you will send me a line or two in reply to this.
Very truly yours | Chas. Warren Stoddard. | Box 1005: P.O.
The verses are all I have to offer you in the literary way3
Footnotes
Bibliography
Stoddard, Charles Warren. [1885.] The lepers of Molokai. Notre Dame, Ind.: ‘Ave Maria’ Press.
Summary
Writes of some observations on the Sandwich Islands.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7163
- From
- Charles Warren Stoddard
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- San Francisco
- Source of text
- DAR 177: 258
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7163,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7163.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 18