From J. J. Weir 5 April 1868
6 Haddo Villas | Blackheath S E
5 April 1868
My Dear Sir
Dont laugh I am about to write a letter which if such an one had been written to me a few years ago I should have deemed the writer very weak minded.—
Many years before my marriage I was visiting at Mrs. Weir’s Fathers in Sussex I cut a deep gash in my knee with a knife, Mrs. Weir (then Miss Jenner) knew of the accident, the wound healed but of course left a cicatrix, my son Percy born years afterwards has very plainly in precisely the same spot a similar mark and was born with it.—1
A friend of mine was struck by the boom of his yacht & had his cheek laid open & to this day the scar is visible, he had a Daughter born 8 years afterwards with a similar mark on the cheek.—2
A friend of my Mothers was thrown out of a chaise & had her cheek very much injured, when my Mother was enceinte with me, she very much regarded this mark, indeed could not take her eyes off it, now I have a similar mark on the cheek & I can plainly feel with my fingers that the muscle of the cheek on the side marked is divided!—3
I have often speculated on my Brother4 & myself having such an intense love of Nature.
My Father5 was very
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Calendar: A calendar of the correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821–1882. With supplement. 2d edition. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1994.
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
George Rolleston’s son was born with a scar on his knee exactly where GR cut himself with a knife years before his marriage. Gives several other examples of inherited mutilation.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6093
- From
- John Jenner Weir
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Blackheath
- Source of text
- DAR 181: 74
- Physical description
- inc †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6093,” accessed on 27 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6093.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16