To Francis Darwin 27 [September 1876]1
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
27th
My dear Frank
I send by this Post the last Chapt.2 It has been a very difficult one to correct. I fear that all this work must have been a great strain on your mind, but its dullness will not have signified to you.
Yesterday I received from Cohn the 2d Heft of his Beitrage, Biolog d. Pflanzen, & he tells me that there are 3 interesting articles in it, one by Nowakowski on a wonderfully simple form of sexual Reproduction in a cryptogam.— A second one on an infectious disease proved to be caused by a low organism—3 And a third, his own paper, on Bacillen, which “gives, I suppose, the key to Dr. Bastian’s astounding observations”.—4 I mention all this to know whether you wd like the vol. sent to you. The latter paper wd. interest the English public, but then as you have not mingled in the controversy, perhaps you had better not.—
I have thought myself bound to ask Cohn & his wife here, (who are Jews) but I hope they wont come, as it kills me,—not but what I withstood poor dear Häckels bellowing at us yesterday very well; & he was in every way very nice.5
It is a great consolation to us to hear that you are able to exert yourself. Häckel suffered the same loss after only one year & suffered dreadfully; & he said work was his sole alleviation.—6 Your mother never has you or the Baby for five minutes out of her head.7
My dear son | Your affectionate Father | C. Darwin
P.S. Revises have come so I shall get on much slower with the Slips.—8
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bastian, Henry Charlton. 1872. The beginnings of life: being some account of the nature, modes of origin and transformations of lower organisms. 2 vols. London: Macmillan.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Cross and self fertilisation: The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1876.
Klemm, Margot. 2002. Ferdinand Julius Cohn 1828–1898: Pflanzenphysiologe, Mikrobiologe, Begründer der Bakteriologie. Stuttgart: University of Stuttgart.
Koch, Robert. 1876. Untersuchungen über Bacterien. V. Die Aetiologie der Milzbrand-Krankheit, begründet auf die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Bacillus Anthracis. Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen 2 (1876–7): 277–310.
Nowakowski, Leon. 1876. Beitrag zur Kenntniss der Chytridiaceen II. Polyphagus Euglenae, eine Chytridiacee mit geschechtlicher Fortpflanzung. Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen 2 (1876–7): 201–19.
Summary
Sends last chapter of Orchids [1877] for revision.
Has some articles that might interest FD.
Has invited Ferdinand Cohn and his wife to Down but hopes they will not come.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10621
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Francis Darwin
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 211: 13
- Physical description
- ALS 5pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10621,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10621.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24