To W. E. Darwin [26 April 1858]1
Moor Park, Farnham | Surrey
Monday Night
My dear old Gulielmus
I was very glad to get this morning your note forwarded here from Down.— Your expedition to Kensington seems to have been rather a failure: I wish I had asked you to look out whether there were in the Museum specimens of Papers for Walls; there used to be at Marlborough House.—2
I see at the last meeting of the Royal Soc., Claudet brought forward a wonderful new invention of throwing a pair of stereoscopic figures into a single, magnified one on ground glass, & this image, without any instrument stands out in relief & several people can view it at once.—3
I sent off by today’s post a draft for 50 guines to Mr. Wilson.—4
I have been here since Tuesday: it has not done me so much good hitherto as before, but yet has much rested me: with 2 or 3 exceptions they are a horrid dull set here; but I amuse myself by loitering about the Park, which is very wild & lonely, so just suits me; & everything looks quite beautiful with this lovely weather. There is an exquisite mixture of ancient Scotch Firs & very old mag-nificent Birches.—5 I pass my time chiefly in watching the ants, & I find that though many thousands inhabit each hillock, each seems to know all its comrades, for they pitch unmercifully into a stranger brought from another ant-hill.6
I shall be extremely curious to hear about the Belgiman:7 by wonderful luck there is here an Hungarian exile, who is going back to his country soon, & he promises to observe about stripes in Hungary & to write to me.— I am very tired & stupid, so good night my dear old fellow
Yours affecty | C. Darwin
If you have opportunity read the “Three Chances”— it is very clever, & part very amusing.—8
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Summary
Has been at Moor Park since Tuesday. Is passing his time watching ants.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2265
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- William Erasmus Darwin
- Sent from
- Moor Park
- Source of text
- DAR 210.6: 24
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2265,” accessed on 9 November 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2265.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7