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Darwin Correspondence Project

From W. R. S. Ralston   26 April 1875

8 Alfred Place | Bedford Square | WC

April 26. 1875

My dear Sir

Imprimis: Pray believe that I am uttering no idle form of complimentary speech, if I say that to do you any such slight service as you now give me the chance of doing, is to me an honour and a pleasure.1 It is part of my reward for busying myself with Russian matters, that I am every now and then able to make myself useful to such persons as yourself—

The letter you have forwarded to me is to the effect that—2

“The Society of Naturalists in the Imperial University of Kazan, being well aware of your great scientific merits, and conscious of the immense service which your labours have rendered to the development of Nature-Knowledge, at a sitting on the 22 of May, 1871, chose you as its Honorary Member— While informing you of this, the Society has the honour to forward to you a diploma

As Honorary Members

President—(illegible)

Secretary N. Malieff(?)”3

Why they should inform you by a letter dated March 1830 18754 of what took place in May 1871, no mind but a Slavonian’s can conceive. I was made a member of a Moscow Historical Society some years ago, but no diploma has ever reached me. All business is done in Russia at a snail’s pace—

The Russian title of the Society is

{ “Obshchestvo }
Society
{ Estestvoispuitatelei } { pri }
of Nature-investigators in
{ Imperatorskom } { Kazanskom }
the Imperial Kazan
{ Universitetye }
University

You can address the President in any language you feel inclined to use.

I shall be starting soon for first Germany and then Russia, with the idea of passing the winter in the latter country, and thence returning to establish myself here as a professional journalist—

As Russian matters will then be more than ever my specialty, I shall be most happy to act as your dragoman5 in case you need the services of such a functionary at any time in Russian matters. And as my fee I will ask leave to come down some day and see the house in which you live, that I may be able to answer properly when catechized about you and yours by your numerous admirers in Russia— For the scientific Russians pay you a sort of cultus. If they got hold of you in person, I am afraid they would elect you an “Ataman”6 on the spot—a great honour, but involving an initiatory rite terribly similar to that of tossing in a blanket;7 only there is no blanket, merely the hands of admiring electors—

Believe me | Yours very truly | W R S Ralston

Charles Darwin Esq, FRS. | &c &c &c

It is just possible that you may be able to find time to glance at the accompanying paper—8

Please do not trouble yourself about acknowledging its receipt or that of this letter—

CD annotations

Top of letter: ‘I am obliged for your curious lecture on Popular tales’9 ink

Footnotes

CD had asked Ralston to translate a Russian diploma that he had received (see letter to W. R. S. Ralston, 24 April [1875]).
The original letter that accompanied the diploma has not been found.
According to the diploma in DAR 229: 41 (see Appendix III), CD was elected an honorary member at a meeting of the society on 22 May 1871, but the diploma itself was dated 17 March 1875. The Naturalists’ Society of the Imperial University of Kazan was founded in 1869. The president was Nikolai Mikhailovich Mel’nikov. The secretary was Nikolai Mikhailovich Maliev.
The original letter evidently gave both Julian (18 March) and Gregorian (30 March) calendar dates.
Dragoman: an interpreter or guide in Eastern countries (Chambers).
Ataman: a Cossack headman or general (Chambers).
Tossing in a blanket: to administer a rough irregular mode of punishment; literally a ritual in which a person is repeatedly tossed into the air and caught on an open blanket by a group of people who hold the blanket at its edges and stretch and relax it for each toss and catch (OED).
Ralston produced a number of articles on Russian, Siberian, and Norse folk stories for the Fortnightly Review, Cornhill Magazine, and Fraser’s Magazine. The article sent to CD has not been identified.
CD’s reply to Ralston has not been found.

Bibliography

Chambers: The Chambers dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers. 1998.

OED: The Oxford English dictionary. Being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of a new English dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, et al. 12 vols. and supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1970. A supplement to the Oxford English dictionary. 4 vols. Edited by R. W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972–86. The Oxford English dictionary. 2d edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Oxford English dictionary additional series. 3 vols. Edited by John Simpson et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993–7.

Summary

Translates letter [of 30 Mar 1875, missing] to CD from the Society of Naturalists in the Imperial University of Kazan, awarding an honorary membership.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-9952
From
William Ralston Shedden-Ralston
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
London, Bedford Square
Source of text
DAR 176: 4
Physical description
ALS 7pp †

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9952,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9952.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23

letter