My dear M^r. Darwin,

The sight of your hand-writing was an agreeable surprise to me yesterday,—for it is always an honour for me to receive a letter from you, and a pleasure to read your friendly talk and hear the news about all your family.¹ With a single exception all seems at present to be marked with a note of white chalk, and so far you may fairly be congratulated by all well wishers; and I can truly regret, because I well know what ill health means, that your son George should be the exception. If he is not a bad sailor, I should think that a summer’s cruise in a fine yatch with so kind and distinguished a friend as Sir W. Thompson would be the very best prescription that he could have made up for him.² It is doubtless hard for a man of great ability to be forced against his will into a state of mental inactivity; but is it not best to yield willingly when resistance would be useless, or possibly prejudicial? Please to give him my salutations and cordial good wishes when you see or write to him.—

This morning’s Paper brings me the announcement that Sir J. Lubbock has been elected Member for the University of London. That will give you pleasure I feel certain; as he is a neighbour of yours, and probably a personal friend. When I heard that he had lost his seat for Maidstone it at once struck me that the result would be received with grief at Down.—³ À propos of election gossip I may mention that the new member for Mary-lebone is an old tenant of N^o. 24. on our Sacred Mount—the Hill of Corn—⁴ He does not occupy the premises himself, and never did, but sublets them in flats for a consideration which ought to be considerable to make such a transaction worth any body’s while!

The title of your new book sounds as if it would come within the comprehension of such an ignoramus as myself, and I shall watch the announcement of its forthcoming with assiduous attention.⁵ I find that I get duller of intellect from year to year; and less and less able to fix my mind closely down upon any subject so as to retain a consecutive understanding of the matter I am reading about, if that happens to be greatly specialized or involves close or subtle argument. For this advancing years are, no doubt, partly to blame—but a dull torpid liver must add largely to that grievance, so that I find myself shirking books which require thoughtful reading, and looking out; much more than I used to do, for amusement than for instruction. But I anticipate both the one and the others in that book about the Movement of Plants. Ah! that reminds me that I shall see before long several strings of blossom bursting forth on the Philadelphus you gave me last autumn.⁶ Both of the plants survived the cold winter and dry spring—quite bravely.

I see that the Critics speak in flattering terms of your portrait at the Exhibition—the one I conclude for which you were sitting at this time last year.⁷ It must be a satisfaction for yourself as well as for your people to know that you have not been deformed nor caricatured by the artist who will hand down your features to the knowledge of coming generations.—

Those Wilberforces must have been, more or less, every one of them men of mark, to have sprouted out of the Clapham Sect into what they became. I used to meet one of them in Italy in my youth who afterwards joined the R.C. persuasion. He was then what we used to call “a Saint”—as was the lady whose house he frequented, a very great friend of mine, a most agreeable, and very worldly lady. She had small feet of which she was exceedingly proud, and I won her heart offhand at the tomb of Cecilia Metella on the Appian Way by offering her my lemon coloured kid gloves to put over her boots when she complained that she could not pass over the grass because it was too wet.⁸ When any of her pious lady friends wanted to convert me she used to say “its of no use your talking to M^r. Rich— I never can get him to be serious on the subject— he’s hardened in sin”!—

Oh! if my kid glove days had not been dead and buried long, long ago, I should not want nor wait for two invitations to Down!⁹ Nothing could give me greater pleasure than to go and visit you at home; but the years that I have spent in a sort of monastic seclusion from social intercourse, if they do not render me unfit for its enjoyment, do make it increasingly difficult, I had almost said impossible, for me to resume the ordinary duties of life. I find too that my hearing is becoming somewhat defective; which renders me unable to follow the conversation going on when several people are talking together— It is now a year and a half since I have been in London; I get shy and nervous at having to go alone and mind my own business; and scarcely anything short of compulsion can get me to move away from my own domicile. If I only had a thorough good body servant to travel with me and take all the trouble off my hands, I should go about much more than I now do. But then, such a man, if found at my time of life, would probably become, or try to become, himself the master—and might get to be a very domineering one.— I do not suppose that there is any chance of your passing this way on your return from Basset.¹⁰ Indeed I am far from sure that the very thought of such a thing may not appear to be somewhat conceited on my part—. Pardon! One half of my household has been disabled of late, but appears now to be convalescent. She goes to town on Wednesday next to see doctor, and as I hope for the last time—¹¹

That attack on you in the Athenaeum I did not see. You & the prime Minister may boast of having been in your day the best abused men in England—and both can look down with the pride of nobly earned triumphs upon the utter discomfiture of their opponents.¹² What satisfaction can be greater either intellectually or morally?—

Please to pass round my regards and respects to all your circle, and especially to the ladies, and believe me to be | Dear M^r. Darwin | Very sincerely yours | Anthony Rich