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Darwin Correspondence Project

From J. G. Fenwick   17 March 1876

Moorlands, | New Castle Tyne

Mch 17—1876

Sir.

Your book on Animal Emotions1 has led me to observe a peculiarity which runs in my own family, perhaps the word “orderliness” best describes it. I have it to a somewhat painful extent, for instance a picture on the wall, in the slightest degree awry will raise me from my seat to put it exactly level, in my library my book shelves must be most exactly in order, and the books even in height on each shelf, if they happen to be disarranged I must have them put right before I can sit down with comfort. I seem to have inherited this from my Mother,2 my eldest sister3 had not this orderliness, at last it led her mother to say, Mary, if you will leave your drawer open, I will send for you to close it wherever you may be, one hot summer day she, and another sister started to visit some friends at a little distance, when over half a mile from home, a little sister came panting after them, to say that Mary was to return home immediately,4 she reluctantly did so, when she arrived, it was to go to her bedroom and shut the door that she had left partly open. This little event happened near forty years ago, and is still remembered, in my own family of eight children then is no special manifestation of this orderliness. but in a nephew a little fellow of some four years old,5 it is shown to an extent that is most trying to his elder brother who is about two years older,6 anything in the house that gets out of place he must have put right, should anything be too heavy for him to move, he will lay down on his back and scream with passion, untill it is rightly placed. I don’t know that these items are of much interest but I venture to send them on.

On another subject, I have a Setter bitch a great favourite, that lives in the house, and she has learnt to turn the tap of a Water Filter when she wants a drink. She manifests her joy, when going out in a remarkable manner, by turning herself completely round, two or three times very rapidly, her Sire and his Dam had exactly the same movement, which I have never seen in any other strain.7

I am, Sir | Your obdt Servt | John Geo Fenwick

Charles Darwin Esqr MA. FRS.

PS. | My little nephew’s orderliness goes to this extent, that if a scuttle of Coal is brought into the room where he is, he must go to it & put the pieces in exact order.

Footnotes

Fenwick had six sisters; there is not enough information in the letter to identify the unnamed ones.
CD discussed dogs’ turning round before they went to sleep as an example of an inherited habitual movement in Expression, p. 42.

Bibliography

Expression: The expression of the emotions in man and animals. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.

Summary

Recounts family trait of excessive orderliness

and the behaviour of his dog.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-10418
From
John George Fenwick
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Source of text
DAR 164: 117
Physical description
ALS 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10418,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10418.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24

letter