To Mary-Anne Herbert [5 May 1842]
12 Upper Gower St
Thursday
My dear Mrs. Herbert
I am very much obliged to you for so quickly sending me Mr. Mears answer— it has destroyed some pleasant castles in airs—but house-hunters are doomed to suffer the greatest misfortunes & ought to be the most patient of men.— It is very obliging of Mr Mears’ being willing to bear my wishes regarding a house in mind.— Should Herbert chance to have any further communication, it would be worth while to inform him, that I consider five miles from a Railway Station as the length of my tether.
With many thanks believe me dear Mrs. Herbert | Yours very truly | C. Darwin
My wife left me on Tuesday with children for Staffordshire1 so that in the language of Boz2 I am a widow & an orphan.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Emma Darwin (1904): Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Edited by Henrietta Litchfield. 2 vols. Cambridge: privately printed by Cambridge University Press. 1904.
Summary
Acknowledges Mrs H’s disappointing answer to his quest for a house in the country. Five miles from a railway station is "the length of my tether".
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-628
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Mary Anne Johnes/Mary Anne Herbert
- Sent from
- London, Upper Gower St, 12
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.)
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 628,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-628.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 2
