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Darwin Correspondence Project

From W. D. Fox   16 July [1875]1

Bedwyn Lodge | Sandown | I. W

July 16

My dear Darwin

I have to thank you, which I do very heartily—for “Insectivous Plants”.2 It is very kind of you remembering me, and I very much value your doing so. I have only peeped into it as yet—partly because I have been more than usually engaged since the Volume arrived, in hunting for a house for self and fami⁠⟨⁠ly⁠⟩⁠

We hoped to have got one in the New Forest,3 but finding this impossible, we have been obliged to content ourselves with one on its verge.

Mr Halliwell—(now Phillipps)4 wrote some weeks since to take our house, and as all the woman kind voted for a three months change, I was obliged to succumb, and we are houseless till August when we enter upon one exactly opposite Southampton on a pretty rising ground, out of reach of the mud of River.5 As there is a steamer hourly to Southampton we can get into Forest by that route, or drive on our own side of water a few miles into it on all sides.

We shall be there this Aug & Sept. What are you going to do this Autumn. You generally, I think get an outing.

Next Monday I go to London till Saturday. I have many things to see about there. Is there any probability of your being in Town. If you are at home, I would try hard to run down to see you once again, for an hour or two.

I get old, and older still in bodily strength, and may not again be able to get to Down. The last winter hit me pretty hard & kept me a prisoner for some months, but I am now well for me, and able to do as usual.

I should so very much like to see you once again—

There is no one so much in my thoughts as you are, and it is so long since we have met, that we shall scarcely know each other in the next world, if we do not in this.

Do not however let me come to you unless you are pretty well, as I should be indeed sorry to be a Bore.

I shall trust to you or Mrs Darwin writing me a line telling me the exact truth.

I shall be at my Sisters

54 Kensington Park Road.

Ladbroke Square6

How former times crowd upon ones mind—and former loved ones— Dear Susan—& Caroline—& your excellent Father—7 Well well!

I must not run on— Kindest regards to Mrs Darwin from my wife8 & self & Believe me | Always yours | W. D. Fox.

Footnotes

The year is established by the reference to Insectivorous plants.
Fox’s name appears on the presentation list for Insectivorous plants (see Appendix IV).
The New Forest is a former royal hunting area bordering on the south coast of England, west of Southampton.
James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps.
Fox had retired from his post as rector of Delamere, Cheshire, in 1873. From 1874, all of his correspondence, apart from this letter, is from Broadlands, Sandown, on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight.
Fox’s sisters Emma and Julia resided at this address (Census returns of England and Wales 1881 (The National Archives: Public Record Office RG11 29/117/30)).
Fox refers to CD’s sisters Susan Elizabeth Darwin and Caroline Sarah Wedgwood, and to his father, Robert Waring Darwin.

Bibliography

Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.

Summary

Thanks CD for Insectivorous plants.

Is coming to London and hopes to visit Down.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-10073
From
William Darwin Fox
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Sandown
Source of text
DAR 164: 200
Physical description
ALS 4pp damaged

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10073,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10073.xml

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

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