Ɛpsilon

To Francis Darwin   [after 27 December 1880]1

[Down.]

My dear F.

Your water-proof coat was left behind, & then your leggings were found, so we have sent off 2 parcels by Rail to you.—2

Enclosed 2 letters.—3 The D. of Argyll, hurrah, has written most civilly to say that he has written to Mr Gladstone to say that he highly approves of pension for Wallace.—4 The Duke wants to come to Down—the Lord have mercy on me—but I shall write & offer to call on him when next in London.—5 There is Bot Zeitung with article by Stahl on relation of forms of cells to intensity of Light—6 I will not send it unless so new—

Yours affect.— Kiss Dubbah7 for me | C. D.—

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to Francis Darwin, 27 December [1880].
2
Francis was staying in Coniston (see letter to Francis Darwin, 27 December [1880] and n. 3).
3
The enclosures have not been found.
4
The letter from George Douglas Campbell, the duke of Argyll, has not been found. CD was circulating a memorial to obtain a government pension for Alfred Russel Wallace. As a member of the government (lord privy seal), Campbell could not sign the memorial, so he wrote a letter to the prime minister, William Ewart Gladstone, expressing his approval.
5
No letter has been found concerning the visit, but CD visited Campbell in London on 28 February 1881 (see Correspondence vol. 29, letter to G. H. Darwin, 27[–8] February [1881]).
6
The article by Ernst Stahl in Botanische Zeitung, 17 December 1880, was ‘Ueber den Einfluss der Lichtintensität auf Structur und Anordnung des Assimilationsparenchyms’ (On the influence of light intensity on the structure and sequence of assimilation of the parenchyma; Stahl 1880b). George John Romanes was planning to experiment on the effect of brief flashes of light on plant tissues (see letter from G. J. Romanes, 10 December 1880).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12950,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12950