Ɛpsilon

To Henry Johnson   28 December [1880]1

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

Decr 28th

My dear Johnson

I am as well as ever I am & working away on worms.2

Heaven knows how the report arose; but this morning my son had a letter from Lady Thompson in Scotland, asking about me & saying she had read in a Scotch newspaper that I was dangerously ill!3 The false report has done me one good turn in bringing me so extremely kind a letter as that of yours.—

My dear Johnson | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Henry Johnson, 27 December [1880].
2
CD had begun writing on the action of worms in the autumn of 1880 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
3
Frances Anna Thomson was a friend of George Howard Darwin. A short report appeared in the Aberdeen Weekly Journal, 25 December 1880, p. 5, stating that CD was confined to his bed but able to read and converse. The same report had appeared in other newspapers, including the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 23 December 1880, p. 5.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
2.2 Scotch] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12951A,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12951A