Ɛpsilon

To G. J. Romanes   14 September [1879]1

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

Sept. 14th

My dear Romanes

We send you our best thanks for your magnificent present of game. I have not tasted Black grouse for nearly half-a-century, when I killed some on my Father-in-laws land in Staffordshire!2

I hope that you are well & strong & do not give up all your time to shooting. Pray tell Mrs Romanes if you turn idle, I shall say it is her fault & being an old man shall scold her.3 But you have done too splendid work to turn idle, so I need not fear & shall never have audaciously to scold Mrs. Romanes. But I am writing great rubbish.— You refer to some Zoological Station on your coast, & I now remember seeing something about it, & that more money was wanted for apparatus. Therefore I send a cheque of 5.5.0 just to show my good will.—4

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

We went to the Lakes for 3 weeks to Coniston, & the scenery gave me more pleasure than I thought my soul, or whatever remains of it, was capable of feeling. We saw Ruskin several times & he was uncommonly pleasant.5

How does poor Grant Allen go on?6

1
The year is established by the reference to CD’s stay in Coniston (see n. 5, below).
2
Josiah Wedgwood II owned Maer Hall, Staffordshire.
3
Romanes had recently married Ethel Duncan.
4
A small zoological station was opened in Cowie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in August 1879; Nature reported the event and made an appeal for financial support (Nature, 14 August 1879, pp. 372–3). No letter from Romanes about the zoological station has been found.
5
The Darwins had stayed at Coniston in the Lake District from 2 to 27 August 1879 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). John Ruskin’s house, Brantwood, overlooked Coniston Water. For more on the Darwins’ visit with Ruskin, see Healey 2001, pp. 301–6.
6
CD had sent a cheque to assist Grant Allen (see letter to G. J. Romanes, 23 July 1879 and n. 1).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.2 her] over ‘your’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12229,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12229