Basset, Southampton.
Monday
Private
Dearest Mother,
I went to Penn on Sunday and laid my mind bare to Hen. She was very kind & sympathetic. I believe my mind is made up, and after a week's change of sense & ideas that I shall come back to Down determined to see her again. I feel she would make me happy & I think I could her, though I should dread the dullness here of the society for her. Her health is poor but I don't feel it much use in discussing that. It is odd I have often in former times had, when her name was mentioned, gleams of what a charming wife she would make.
Please keep secret as it is probably all moonshine & waste of resolution.
Goodbye dearest Mother, I am sure if such an extraordinary thing was to happen it would make you & Hen very happy.
I am delighted Jim is coming.
address Post Office Whitby,
Your affect son | W. E. D.
N. B. Don't understand this to mean more than that I am inclined to see her again
Status: Draft transcription
This transcript was produced as a side-product of the work of the Darwin Correspondence Project and may not have been proofread to the DCP’s usual standards.
Please cite as “FL-0240,” in Ɛpsilon: The Darwin Family Letters Collection accessed on