From Thomas Bell [5 December 1838]
My dear Darwin—
Let me begin by assuring you of my most hearty congratulations and best & kindest wishes— I am rejoiced at your approaching marriage, for I know how happy you must be as a married man, if your wife be as calculated to make you so as you are to confer happiness on her. Depend on it old Lord Bacon was right when he said that Friendship doubleth our joys and cutteth our griefs in halfs,”1 and it is most especially true of that most exalted and refined and perfect friendship which marriage alone can produce & foster— But I am running on without the card— suffice it for me again to assure you of my most sincere good wishes—
The “poor reptiles” shall be thought about— I have received some of them back from Bibron2 named according to his own nomenclature—and I doubt not we shall be able to get some subjects in readiness for figuring by the time you mention—3
Your note arrived in New Broad Street4 just after Dr. Buckland, Sir Philip Egerton & Stokes had left me—& I was chagrined that I could not come to the Society—
Yours most sincerely | Thomas Bell Hornsey
Wednesday eveng
Footnotes
Bibliography
Post Office London directory: Post-Office annual directory. … A list of the principal merchants, traders of eminence, &c. in the cities of London and Westminster, the borough of Southwark, and parts adjacent … general and special information relating to the Post Office. Post Office London directory. London: His Majesty’s Postmaster-General [and others]. 1802–1967.
Reptiles: Reptiles. Pt 5 of The zoology of the voyage of HMS Beagle. By Thomas Bell. Edited and superintended by Charles Darwin. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1843.
Summary
Sends congratulations on CD’s forthcoming marriage.
Has received some of the reptiles back from G. Bibron, who has named them. TB will get "some subjects in readiness for figuring" by CD’s date.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-452
- From
- Thomas Bell
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Hornsey
- Source of text
- DAR 204: 163
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 452,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-452.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 2