To Marian Evans 30 March [1873]1
16, Montague St | Portman Sq
March 30th.—
My dear Mrs. Lewes.
I hope that you will forgive me for venturing to beg a great favour. Yours & Mr. Lewes’ kindness towards me when I have called is my sole & rather poor excuse.2 My eldest daughter & her husband, Mr. Litchfield,3 have the strongest wish to be allowed to call on you some Sunday evening.— I think that it will be some recommendation of Mr. Litchfield when I tell you that he has aided in every possible way during many years the Working Mens College; having first taught mathematiks & of late music & singing.— If you will grant your permission, the briefest line on a Post-Card will suffice. If I do not hear, I will understand that you have, as is too probable, already too many callers.
I beg leave to remain like so many other englishmen & english women4 | Yours very truly obliged | Charles Darwin
My wife complains that she has been very hardly treated, & that I ought to have asked permission for her to call on you with me when we next come to London; but I tell that I still have some shreds of modesty.—
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Eliot, George. 1859. Adam Bede. 3 vols. Edinburgh: William Blackwood.
Eliot, George. 1860. The mill on the Floss. 3 vols. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.
Eliot, George. 1861. Silas Marner: the weaver of Raveloe. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.
Summary
Asks whether the Litchfields may call on her. "My wife complains that she has been very badly treated and that I ought to have asked permission for her to call on you with me when we next come to London: but I tell her that I still have some shreds of modesty."
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8831
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Marian (Mary Anne) (George Eliot) Evans/Marian (Mary Anne) (George Eliot) Lewes/Marian (Mary Anne) (George Eliot) Cross
- Sent from
- London, Montague St, 16
- Source of text
- University of Redlands, Armacost Library
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8831,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8831.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 21