To W. D. Fox 24 [March 1859]
Down Bromley Kent
24th
My dear Fox
It was very good of you to write to me in the midst of all your troubles, though you seem to have got over some of them in the recovery of your wife’s & own health.— I had not heard lately of your mother’s health, & am sorry to hear so poor an account.1 But [as] she does not suffer much, that is the great thing; for mere life I do not think is much valued by the old. What a time you must have had of it, when you had to go backwards & forwards!—2
We are all pretty well & our eldest daughter is improving. I can see daylight through my work & am now finally correcting my chapters for press; & I hope in month or six weeks to have proof-sheets. I am weary of my work. It is a very odd thing that I have no sensation that I overwork my brain; but facts compel me to conclude that my Brain was never formed for much thinking.— We are resolved to go for 2 or 3 months, when I have finished to Ilkley or some such place, to see if I can anyhow give my health a good start, for it certainly has been wretched of late, & has incapacitated me for everything.3 You do me injustice when you think that I work for fame: I value it to a certain extent; but, if I know myself, I work from a sort of instinct to try to make out truth.4
How glad I should be if you could sometime come to Down; especially when I get a little better, as I still hope to be.— We have set up a Billiard Table, & I find it does me a deal of good, & drives the horrid species out of my head.—
Farewell my dear old friend.— | Yours affecty | C. Darwin
One of my Boys is turned Coleopterist, & how the sight of a fresh Brachinus crepitans did remind me of that famous trip to Whittlesea meer.—5
Pray give my very kind remembrances to your sisters.—
I most sincerely hope that Mrs Fox’s sufferings will not increase.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Autobiography: The autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. With original omissions restored. Edited with appendix and notes by Nora Barlow. London: Collins. 1958.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Metcalfe, Richard. 1906. The rise and progress of hydropathy in England and Scotland. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.
Summary
Is correcting chapters [of Origin] for press.
Health has been wretched of late.
He values fame to a certain extent, but "if I know myself, I work from a sort of instinct to try to make out truth".
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2436
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- William Darwin Fox
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 120)
- Physical description
- ALS 7pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2436,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2436.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7