My dear M^r. Darwin,

I have been thinking for many a long day that I would write and ask how you and your belongings and surroundings—fauna and flora—had survived the persistent fogs and frosts of the last four months.¹ Bravely, I hope, and in that faith I shall steadfastly continue unless, or until, I hear any thing to the contrary. Verily you deserve the Victoria Cross, and M^rs. Darwin the Star of India, for taking that plunge into the Cimmerian gloom of London streets at such a season during such a winter.² My sister,³ who lives in rather an out of the way part of London, Woburn Square, but which is immediately connected with large open spaces, wrote me word that they had passed five consecutive days under gaslight the whole time! You escaped such an infliction as that, I trust; but anyhow I may safely greet your joint resolution, about visiting at mid winter, with the sententious response which Charles Dickens received from a Dublin juvenile, aged six years, upon telling him that he liked talking to little boys—“Yer right”.—⁴

I heard not very long since from your son William, who has very good naturedly interested himself in my behalf with some importers of cattle from the Channel Islands: He told me that his brother George had passed a wretched time of it on the journey to Davos, being laid up even for a week on the way; and after all found that the place did not agree with him. How often it happens that those localities, which rise into sudden and exaggerated repute, gain an undeserved notoriety only by the puffs of lodging house and hotel keepers, people who have land to sell in the vicinity, and a doctor with a specialité! He will soon; I expect, be homeward bound—perhaps at this moment is resting with you at Down—and, without a perhaps let me trust, thoroughly recovered from previous ailments. When he comes please to give him kind remembrances, and all sorts of good wishes from me. He spent as you know a day with me on his way to Bassett—a very pleasant one to me; We fished out some Epigrams that were current at Cambridge in my day, and which, he told me, were written by a relative of his own.—⁵

If I had had a proper sense of the convenances I should have taken care before this time to congratulate both M^rs. Darwin and yourself upon the marriage of your son Horace.⁶ But an “outside barbarian”⁷ such as I am is sure to make a hole in his manners three hundred and sixty five times in the year at least. It must be a thorough gratification for parents to see their children settling themselves well and comfortably in life; and all without you’re being compelled to, “assist at” the wedding in person!

I’m sure they’re a charming couple, And you’re a most fortunate man.— I hope that they never would come into this neighbourhood without giving me an opportunity of making their acquaintance.—

The “Cray-fish” I found rather hard of digestion. Not from any fault in the dish itself, nor of the Chef by whom it was prepared; but because the intellectual stomach at the age of 76, is not so able to assimilate such concentrated technical food without some previous educational discipline of which mine is altogether wanting.⁸ So I merely skimmed over the surface in a half capricious way—like Horace’s town mouse, dente superbo—when I ought to have dived seriously down to the bottom of the plat.⁹ Professor Huxley’s project for a series of “Biographies of men of Science” will be, I presume, somewhat upon the plan of John Morley’s “Men of Letters”, which report says has been very successful.¹⁰ The former, however, will have the more difficult task, both from the nature of his subject and the smaller number of persons capable of being interested by it. But H. does everything so well that one cannot but anticipate success for him in all his undertakings. I should look forward with intense interest to any Political writings from such a pen as his. Indeed some robust specimens of that description of literature are much wanted just now if we are not all of us to become Orientalized and adopted into the “higher Jewish caste of the Sephardim”, with our ruling Knight of the Garter.¹¹

Macvey Napier’s Correspondence afforded me as much pleasure as it did you. He must have been a man of wonderful patience and self command to have kept that gibbing Scotch nag from kicking right over the traces.—¹² The Memoirs of Madame de Remusat is another interesting book, which I dare say you will have read. It will have rejoiced the Shades of Sir Hudson Lowe if some of our Spiritists would only inform him that the world has been duly informed what a domestic ruffian he had in his keeping.—¹³

I read the other day in the Life & Letters of Caroline Herschell that at the age of 92, as an instance of her great physical power, she “put her leg behind her back and scratched her ear with it, like a dog”.— You wrote me word that you found it a hard job to know what to believe … Try that.!¹⁴

From books to “kitchen stuff” is an awful leap; but I must take it or I shall die of despair; and you, who know so much about every thing, must be called in, if you will, as the doctor who is to save me from myself. It is customary about here to cover the sea cale with sea weed in the winter, and I have done so for many years with complete success. But this spring we have found an immense number of white maggots about the third of an inch long under the weeds; and they have eaten round the stems of the cale close to the ground so that the plant breaks off and rots away. My gardener, who never saw the like before, thinks that these destructive things are engendered in the sea weeds. He says that he had observed a large number of flies, about the size of a house fly, but with longer & darker bodies than them, disporting themselves over the bed during the winter—and these he pronounces to be the fons et origo mali. But the weeds came up dripping wet just out of the sea, just as they were thrown up at the moment, and I do not suppose that the fathers of insects can be produced under the sea—to live and flourish upon dry land. The beds were covered over at least six weeks later than usual, because the times had been so calm that no weeds were to be obtained; but as the frosts were severe and enduring the autumn sweepings of dead leaves from the elm trees were laid over the beds for protection. Did they conceal the germs from which my enemies have sprung.? Aiutatemi, caro Signore!—¹⁵

My friend or foe, I don’t know which to call him, the Gulf Stream, seems to have found his way into the Channel at last. I wonder whether there is any chance of his being diverted into the Pacific when M^r Lesseps has made his interoceanic canal?—¹⁶ But really—notwithstanding your exceeding courtesy and good nature—I do begin to feel that this long rigmarole exceeds the bounds of discretion. So no more. You can’t see my blushes. Fancy them; scarlet as the wattles of an angry turkey cock. The philadelphus flourishes; so does its present owner; so, I trust, does its donor; and so, I hope, does that lady, who keeps a strict hand upon your vagaries, and amongst whose constituents I shall be anxious to be enrolled when the wrongs of animals and the rights of women have been removed to the “field of practical politics”—¹⁷

Until then I must be content to sign myself hers and yours | Very sincerely | Anthony Rich

March. 7. 1880.—