To S. H. Haliburton   13 December 1880

Leith Hill Place | Dorking

Dec. 13. 1880

(Home tomorrow)

My dear Sarah

It was very good of you to write, & your note has given me much pleasure.1 It is not too common to find anyone in this world as true as steel. Your postscript is your own dear old self.—2

Immediately you left (Queen Anne St. Emma & I said to one another we must try when the weather gets a little better, whether she will face the dullness of Down & pay us a little visit.3 So that in the early spring you will have to make up your mind.

I had hoped to call & see whether Mrs. Biddulph would admit me, & had got her address, but a Russian naturalist came to luncheon & dinned me half to death & then an American naturalist, & I was half dead.4 But next time that I am in London I will try. I think that there must be some Mrs Biddulph living in Leamington, for I was told so positively that our Mrs Biddulph lived there, that I have thought of enquiring. In former years I was, also, rarely fit to see anybody.5

Let me call you | my dear old friend | Yours affectionately | Charles Darwin

Caroline is a little better & came down to dinner the first time for three months. She sends you her very kind love.6

2
Haliburton had chided CD for addressing her as Mrs Haliburton (letter from S. H. Haliburton, 12 December [1880]).
3
Haliburton had visited CD and Emma at CD’s brother’s house, 6 Queen Anne Street, London.
4
Fanny Myddelton Biddulph lived at 26 Grosvenor Place, London (Census returns of England and Wales 1881 (The National Archives: Public Record Office RG11/98/92/5)). The Russian naturalist was Vladimir Onufrievich Kovalevsky, who visited with his wife, Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya. The American naturalist has not been identified, but may have been Asa Gray, who was working at Kew between December 1880 and March 1881 (J. L. Gray ed. 1893, 2: 713–14).
5
For more on CD’s health and periods of illness, see Correspondence vol. 13, Appendix IV.
6
The Darwins were staying at Leith Hill Place, Surrey, the home of CD’s sister, Caroline Sarah Wedgwood. Caroline had been ill since October (see letter to T. H. Farrer, 1 October 1880).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 Dorking] before del ‘Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.’
2.1 (Queen Anne St.] added
3.3 an] after del ‘some’
3.3 that I am in London] interl
3.4 try.] point after del comma
3.5 that I] ‘that’ altered from ‘then’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12908,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12908