Summary

Glad to have his letter; supposes she will receive only two or three more from him in her life.

Thinks he should leave the curtains for her.

Discusses Mungo Park and Sir Walter Scott’s Life.

Summary

Responds to his "business letter" about the maids, then chides herself for feeling dull and disagreeable when she has had everything all her life.

Summary

CD too unwell to write but has signed the [unspecified] paper and forwarded it as requested.

Summary

Discusses CD’s religious doubts. Fears his work may lead him to discount what cannot be proved, and advises that there are some things which, "if true are likely to be above our comprehension" and "that there is a danger in giving up revelation".

Summary

Responds to items in CD’s letter, just received. Suggests parts of London where he might look for a house. Gives news of friends and relatives.

Summary

Parish and family news.

Francis Darwin’s marriage; Francis serves as CD’s assistant.

Summary

Encloses a four-page printed pamphlet on the cruelty of steel traps [see Collected papers 2: 83–4].

Summary

Invites AG to stay at Down.

Summary

CD cannot come to London to sit for photograph. Sends one taken by son [Leonard], which family considers the best likeness. CD would be glad to give a sitting at Down.

Summary

CD’s health.

Family and local news.

Summary

Responds warmly to his very nice letter. CD need have no fear that she will not be as happy as he.

Again expresses uneasiness that their opinions on religion do not agree on all points. Hopes they will sympathise in their feelings on the subject.

Summary

Thanks for FPC’s book (presumablyAlone to the alone: prayers for theists (Cobbe ed. 1871)).

CD much interested in article ‘Darwinism in morals’ in the Theological Review (Cobbe 1871).

CDs and FPC’s views on moral sense in hive bees, and an article in the Pall Mal Gazette ([Morley] 1871b).

Summary

CD is very unwell; will be unable to see RT.

Summary

Request for plant.

Receipt of Oliver’s letter.

Summary

CD too ill to write.

He thanks Appleton for most beautiful work of natural history he has ever seen.

Summary

JS’s MS [of Primula paper] arrived, but CD is too ill to read it.

CD has sent JS’s paper on orchid sterility to Botanische Zeitung and to Hooker.

Summary

CD is reading the Theological Review (Cobbe 1871) with the greatest interest and attention.

Summary

Describes the journey home and the long talks on their return. No maid has been found, so he should engage the one she saw, "for ten guineas & tea & sugar a year". She thought CD looked unwell and overtired.

Summary

Kind to send seeds of Aquilegia Brodii. Gives news on her sons. Glad of recent rain to help the hay.

Summary

CD desires her to say that the cream of THF’s letter of congratulations about William [Darwin]’s marriage [to Sara Sedgwick] lay in the P.S. about "the beloved worms, and not in any such trifles as marrying, &c".