From J. J. Aubertin 4 March 1871
Windham Club. | St. James’s Square. | S.W.
March 4. 1871
Dear Mr. Darwin
Thanks for your letter. I shall certainly come down some day to the Orpington Station & find my way to your house—1
But I am very sorry to hear that you are so much out of health: & the more so from the selfish motive that I shall not be able to renew those old conversations I used to have with you, except under short restrictions. For myself I am of course very different from what I was at Ilkley—2 Dr Smith did me much good, & the Brazilian climate was the best change for me that could be afterwards—3 But I am still forcibly reminded in many ways that there was much bungling at my creation.
What a sad account you give me of poor Miss Butler!4 I had, of course, no notion she was even dead: & certainly not, how! Death appears able to show as much “infinite variety” as any other phenomenon! But while all his various features are left behind & seen, he himself is just as much a mystery as ever! Will he be worth knowing after all?—
So shattered France at last makes Peace! And they, who by their own acts brought her to her present necessity of accepting the terms proposed, of course turn round upon the others for having submitted to them!5
Is not this—the old tail?!
With kind regards to Mrs. Darwin | Faithfully yours | J. J. Aubertin.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Graham, Richard. 1968. Britain and the onset of modernization in Brazil 1850–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wawro, Geoffrey. 2003. The Franco-Prussian war: the German conquest of France in 1870–1871. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Summary
Thanks for letter and invitation to come to Down.
Sorry about CD’s bad health; Brazilian climate has improved his own.
Sorry to hear Miss Butler is dead.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7545
- From
- John James Aubertin
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Windham Club
- Source of text
- DAR 159: 126
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7545,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7545.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19