To Francis Darwin   [before 25 February 1879]1

I cannot find (& want much) the tool with hollow handle full of bradalls & other tools.— My old finely pointed pincers for dissection have also disappeared.— Nor can I find your fine pincers— Can you tell me where to look— I have searched your table in vain.2 C. D.

I do hope my dear old fellow that you will soon feel good effects from so complete a change.— Bernard gets more charming every day—3 Love to old George. Tell him I am awfully perplexed how big a sum to subscribe to Clifford.— They have put me on the Committee, which is already gigantic.4

C. D.—

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Francis Darwin, [c. 25 February 1879].
2
CD misspelt ‘bradawl’. Francis was CD’s secretary and assistant; he had gone to visit George Howard Darwin in Algiers on 4 February 1879 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).
3
Francis’s son, Bernard Darwin.
4
A public testimonial fund for the gravely ill mathematician William Kingdon Clifford had been set up by the senate of University College, London; see letter to John Tyndall, 14 February 1879 and n. 1. Thomas Henry Huxley, William Spottiswoode, and John Tyndall were other prominent members of the committee, a partial list of whose members appeared in Nature, 13 February 1879, pp. 349–50.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 old] interl
1.2 for dissection] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11883A,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11883A