Ɛpsilon

To Leonard Blomefield   13 March 1877

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

March 13th. 77

My dear Jenyns (I see I have forgotten your proper name.)1

Your extremely kind letter has given me warm pleasure.2 As one gets old ones thoughts turn back to the past rather than to the future, & I often think of the pleasant & to me valuable hours which I spent with you on the borders of the fens.3 You ask about my future work, I doubt whether I shall be able to do much more that is new, & I always keep before my mind the example of poor old Gray of the British Museum who in his old age had a cacoethes for writing.4 But I cannot endure doing nothing so I suppose that I shall go on as long as I can without obviously making a fool of myself.

I have a great mass of matter with respect to variation under nature, but so much has been published since the appearance of the Origin of Species, that I very much doubt whether I retain power of mind & strength to reduce the mass into a digested whole.5 I have sometimes thought that I would try, but dread the attempt.

The birth-day presents of the albums have pleased me very much, more especially as they contain the photographs of some illustrious men6

I am heartily glad that your health keeps good. Again let me thank you cordially for your letter, & I remain | Yours very sincerely | Charles Darwin

1
In 1871, Leonard Jenyns received a considerable property on condition that he change his name to Blomefield (ODNB).
4
See letter from Leonard Blomefield, 12 March 1877 and n. 3. John Edward Gray was incapacitated by a stroke in 1869 but continued writing articles and remained in his post of keeper of the zoological collections at the British Museum until 1874 (ODNB) .
5
In Origin, p. 4, CD said of variation in nature that he was ‘compelled to treat this subject far too briefly’ and that it could ‘be treated properly only by giving long catalogues of facts’. Some material was included in CD’s ‘big book’ on species (Natural selection), which was not published in his lifetime.
6
See letter from Leonard Blomefield, 12 March 1877 and n. 1. CD had received two albums of photographs of Dutch and German scientists and well-wishers.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.3 I … name] added and enclosed in box
1.2 the future] ‘the’ added

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10891,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10891