Ɛpsilon

To [Auguste Daubrée]   [1849?]1

Down Farnborough Kent

Thursday

My dear Sir

I have delayed writing to you as I had hoped to have sent today by our weekly carrier the specimens you require.2 But I have been prevented getting them out (for they are all stowed away in Bags) partly by having been unwell & by having engagements on those days when I was well.— I really will try this day next week get them out,: it wd be no use getting them sooner, as our carrier goes only once a week & the cross-coaches are expensive carriage.—

Thank you much for your German Scientific newspaper, (which I suppose you do not wish returned)   I got through it with many sighs & groans & was interested with the Paper on the Habitats of plants, as well as by that on the Hybrids &c &c.

I am sure you will excuse my apparent, but unintentional neglect in not having sooner answered your note3 & forward the specimens.

Yours very faithfully | C. Darwin

1
The correspondent is conjectured from the fact that the letter was found in a collection of letters to Auguste Daubrée, who was presumably in England when the letter was written. The year is conjectured from the narrow mourning border on the notepaper, combined with the Farnborough address, which suggests that it was written in the year following the death of CD’s father, Robert Waring Darwin (1766–1848), in November 1848.
2
George Snow operated a weekly carrier service between Down and London. The specimens have not been identified, but were presumably geological, since Daubrée was a geologist.
3
The note has not been found.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1260G,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1260G