To William Benjamin Carpenter   [January? 1847]1

Down Farnborough | Kent

Saturday

My dear Sir

I was truly sorry to break my engagement, but I was in bed on Tuesday & Wednesday & have been very unwell all this week.—

I am most anxious to profit by your advice: could you spare me an hour or hour & half on next, Wednesday, or Thursday or Friday Evening: I wd come up on purpose & wd next morning order a microscope— Your note has finally determined me to get one as soon as possible,2 & I groan to think over the 3 or 4 months.

I wd. start from West End a few minutes after 5 & I suppose I shd arrive at your house, a little before 7 oclock. If you cannot see me on the 3 mentioned days, wd you kindly appoint the next earliest in the ensuing week.—

Will you send me a line by General Post on Monday.—

Yours truly obliged | C. Darwin

P.S. | If you chance to know that you will be at home two evenings perhaps you will give me the liberty of the choice; though I assure you, nothing but incapacity shall prevent my coming up on the first appointed day.

P.S. 2d. If you are engaged on Wednesday, Thursday & Friday, perhaps I shd be well enough on Tuesday, & I wd. then try & answer your note in person.

1
The date is conjectured from an entry of 29 April 1847 in CD’s Account Book (Down House MS) recording £34 2s. paid to Smith and Beck, the scientific instrument makers. Allowing the ‘3 or 4 months’ mentioned in the letter for delivery, the order was probably placed early in 1847. CD attended a Geological Society council meeting on Wednesday, 6 January (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix I), but no expenses for other trips to London were noted in his Account Book until April.
2
CD purchased two microscopes for use in dissecting cirripedes, the compound microscope mentioned in the present letter and a single-lens dissecting microscope, purchased in 1848 (see letter to Richard Owen, [26 March 1848], n. 2).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

3.3 in the ensuing week—] added; ‘in’ over comma
6.1 chance] altered from ‘chanced’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1050,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1050