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Darwin Correspondence Project

To W. B. Carpenter   17 June [1860]1

Down Bromley Kent

June 17th

My dear Carpenter

I should have written to you long before this to have reminded you of your kind promise of running down here for a Sunday; but I have for last seven weeks been hoping against hope that my daughter would rapidly recover.—   She has now been in her bed with low fever for exactly this period; & is only just now beginning very slowly to recover; whenever she is strong enough to get her out of bed, we shall have to move somewhere for change of air; so that I am sorry to say we must defer your little visit here till the latter part of summer or autumn. I know that you go to your sea-side home in Scotland every year;2 & I suppose we shall have to go, also, to sea-side for my daughters sake.—

I have been of late sufficiently well pitched into to please anybody, about my Book.—   But I care very little, which I entirely & absolutely owe to the generous & kind support of a very few men.— When I reflect, as I often do, that such men as Lyell, yourself, Hooker, & Huxley go a certain way with me, nothing will persuade me that I am so wholly & egregiously in error as many of my reviewers think.—

Pray do not trouble yourself to answer this.—

My dear Carpenter | Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin

Footnotes

The year is given by the reference to Henrietta Emma Darwin’s continuing ill health (see ‘Journal’; Appendix II).
Carpenter and his family spent their summers on Holy Island, in the Firth of Clyde, off the western coast of Scotland. See Correspondence vol. 7, letter to W. B. Carpenter, 26 January [1858].

Bibliography

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Summary

Must defer WBC’s visit, owing to daughter’s illness.

Comments on response to the Origin. Has been "well pitched into", but cares little, because of support of men like WBC.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-2834
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
William Benjamin Carpenter
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 261.6: 6 (EH 88205923)
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2834,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2834.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8

letter