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Darwin Correspondence Project

From Emma Darwin   [19 April 1851]

Down

Sat. | 14 past 4.

My dearest N.1

The message is just arrived. What happiness! How I do thank God! but I will not feel too hopeful. I was in the garden looking at my poor darling’s little garden to find a flower of hers when John Griffith’s2 drove up. Give my best love to dear Fanny & Catherine.3 The latter & Brodie4 must want some repose. We shall hear nothing more now till Monday but I shall wait very well now.

John takes this back with him but I don’t know whether it will be too late.

I hardly dare think of such happiness. I hope you will sleep tonight my own.

May the dreadful sickness keep off our child

Goodbye. | E.D

Footnotes

An abbreviation for ‘Nigger’, one of Emma’s pet names for CD (Emma Darwin (1915) 2: 104).
Probably Erasmus Alvey Darwin’s manservant.
Probably Catharine Ann Thorley, who was nursing Anne.
The Darwin children’s nurse, Jessie Brodie (Emma Darwin (1915) 2: 86).

Bibliography

Emma Darwin (1915): Emma Darwin: a century of family letters, 1792–1896. Edited by Henrietta Litchfield. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1915.

Summary

Gives her reactions to CD’s reports on Anne’s health.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-1405
From
Emma Wedgwood/Emma Darwin
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 210.13: 14
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1405,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1405.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5

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