Ɛpsilon

From C. C. Blake   10 July 1879

28 East St Queen’s Square. W.C.

July 10th 1879

My Dear Sir.

I have a favour to ask you, which I hope you will not refuse. You have more than once kindly noticed my past anthropological work (Descent of Man. 2nd ed. page 40) and though at one time I may have been opposed to the theory of Natural Selection, I have long since in my public lectures acknowledged the theory.1 I have given you my support, & do not ask you to buy it.

During the last few years I have been very poor, and subject to a variety of troubles. Owing to the bankruptcy of my wife’s brother,2 I lost some savings I had accumulated from newspaper work.But since in 1877 I had typhoid fever, I have become very weak, & during the time of my illness I lost most of my press engagements. I have now sold off most of my books, and am in a great state of pecuniary distress & privation, though in the cheapest lodgings, & free from debt. I have made an effort lately to lecture at the British Museum, but in spite of the favourable notices of the press (there was one in the Times of Tuesday)3 I regret to say that no one paying has come to the lectures. I had relied on this course at least recouping the money I had advanced for advertisements. It is hard to lecture to no audience at all. Could you lend me five pounds till some brighter days come for me?4 I am translating Fau’s Anatomie Artistique, which will be paid for some day, when finished.5 My lectures at Westminster Hospital, though always duly delivered, have never paid, as there are very few medical students who care to work up the subjects of Comparative Anatomy; and Zoology is entirely above their level. I give lessons in Latin, Spanish, & French to pupils, and should be always glad to have more. You have been very successful as a literary man. Perhaps the influence of South America has been of some effect in this. For my part, I have never quite shaken off the calentura which has left acute ague, which has now lasted ten years.6 Try to help me if you can. If I should again win back my old position on the press, I shall repay you some day. But in any case, you will have the consciousness that you assist one who has always respected the greatest Biologist of this century.

I am | Yours very truly | C. Carter Blake. | Doct. Sci. | Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy. Westminster Hospital

Charles Darwin. Esq F.R.S

1
See Descent 2d ed., p. 40 n. 45; see also ibid., p. 20, n. 42. CD had referred to Blake’s description of the large canine teeth in the jawbone found in a cave at La Naulette, Belgium (Blake 1867). On Blake’s opposition to Darwinian theory and subsequent change of view, see G. Dawson 2016, pp. 286–300.
2
Blake’s wife was Louisa Mary Blake; her brother was Henry Faulkner.
3
Blake’s lecture on the character of fishes and their relationship to lower amphibians was described as the first in a series titled ‘Classes of fishes, and the modes of preservation of fossils’ (The Times, 8 July 1879, p. 5).
4
On 11 July 1879, CD recorded a payment to Blake of £5 under the heading ‘Charities’; another payment of £5 was recorded on 21 December 1880 (CD’s Classed account books (Down House MS)).
5
Blake’s translation of the sixth edition of Julien Fau’s Anatomie artistique élémentaire du corps humain (Elementary artistic anatomy of the human body; Fau 1880) was published in 1881 (Fau 1881).
6
Blake alludes to CD’s time in South America while on the Beagle voyage and to the Journal of researches, which went through several editions. Calentura: fever (Spanish). Blake, while on a voyage around the world in 1867–8, explored the territory of the Miskito, a group of Native Americans in Honduras and Nicaragua (Journal of the Anthropological Society of London 6 (1868): xv; see also Flandreau 2016, p. 179).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12144,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12144