To John Innes 18 July [1860]
at Miss Wedgwoods | Hartfield | Tonbridge Wells
July 18th
Dear Innes.
Thanks for Coal-bill which I will pay as soon as I get home in about 10 days time.—1 I am sincerely sorry to hear so poor an account of Mrs. Innes.2
We moved Etty here with much difficulty a fortnight ago, & she has improved very little, but thank God she has improved a little. She now can generally sit up for above hour twice a day. I have been a good deal knocked up of late & have had to recur to Water-cure; but all our anxiety with Etty ill for 12 weeks has been enough to knock us up. But my wife has stood the incessant nursing wonderfully. Women are so good & unselfish, that helping others seems to do them good.—
Our plans are utterly Uncertain; we hope to take Etty to sea, whenever she is strong enough; but where & when are both quite unknown to us.—
What a wandering life you have been leading!
We shall be very glad to see you at Down.— I enquired (not alluding to you) about Mr Ainslie’s house,3 but can hear nothing whatever. Parslow asked Mr Baxter,4 but he knew nothing.
Farewell with our kind remembrances to Mrs. Innes— believe me | Dear Innes | Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin
I hope from your note that Johnny is tolerably well.— 5
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Moore, James Richard. 1985. Darwin of Down: the evolutionist as squarson-naturalist. In The Darwinian heritage, edited by David Kohn. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press in association with Nova Pacifica (Wellington, NZ).
Summary
Henrietta’s illness.
CD’s resort to [E. W. Lane’s] water-cure.
Other family news.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2870
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- John Brodie Innes
- Sent from
- Wedgwood, S. E. (b) Hartfield
- Postmark
- JY 18 60
- Source of text
- Cleveland Health Sciences Library (Robert M. Stecher collection)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2870,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2870.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8