To S. A. Cecil   8 June 1876

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R. [Hollycombe, Hampshire.]

June 8th. 1876.

Dear Lord Sackville Cecil

I have just heard that my sister has arrived safely at Leith Hill Place; & I hope that you will allow me to thank you from my heart for your unbounded kindness. She was so timid that I believe she would not (even if she could) have gone by a special train, had it not been for your advice & intervention. Whether she will ever recover is very doubtful after so terrible an illness, but her husband is old & delicate, & if he had been taken ill in the same small sea-side villa, it would have killed her with distress.1

I remain, my dear Lord | Yours gratefully | Charles Darwin

1
A less complete version of this letter was published from an earlier sale catalogue in Correspondence vol. 24. Caroline Wedgwood, CD’s sister, seems to have been taken ill at Felixstowe in August 1875 (see Correspondence vol. 23, letter from E. A. Darwin to Emma Darwin, 1 September [1875?]). See also Correspondence vol. 24, letter to W. D. Fox, 26 May [1876]. Her husband was Josiah Wedgwood III. Cecil was a son of one of CD’s correspondents, Mary Catherine Stanley, Lady Derby, by her first marriage.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 sister] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10535H,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10535H