Ɛpsilon

From W. E. Darwin   [24 April 1881]1

Abinger Hall, | Dorking. | (Gomshall S.E.R. | Station & telegraph.)

Sunday

My dear Father,

On the open expanses of the Malvern hills there was not a trace of the parallel paths.2 At one or two spots where donkey paths had been cut in the side of the hills on the steep part just above the path where the earth would tend to crumble down there were one or two ragged step like ridges, but they do not deserve the name of paths, & would often be caused by walking; of course it had been extremely dry for several weeks before we went to Malvern, & was dry almost the whole visit, so that castings would have not been washed away, so that I can safely say there is an almost entire absence or very great rarity of castings on the sides of the hills; there were some few on lower edges of the donkey paths where earth had accumulated, and below the paths where the grass was greener, also here & there on fairly level spots not high up. On the West as soon as you get off the syenite onto the Ludlow formation I found enormous quantities of castings evidently the collection of many weeks.3 On the Malvern hills the sheep seem to feed just as often, and perhaps rather oftener, ascending the hills than going across the slopes. So much for worms, and I doubt if it is worth boring you with it. I am much better, and we are both enjoying our visit.4 Effie is most pleasant in every way, and the Palgraves, and Hawkshaws I am glad to meet, also to have had a sight of Horace & Ida; I believe things went quite smoothly.5 I go to Southton tomorrow.6 I am so glad you did nothing but crush that lying venemous toad with the blue book.7

Goodbye dear Father | your affect. WED

Sara is well and enjoying this lovely place & we have fine weather. We were much overcome at the honour of being asked.

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to The Times, 21 April [1881] (see n. 7, below), and the fact that 24 April was the Sunday after Horace and Ida Darwin left Down on 19 April 1881 (see n. 5, below).
2
There are several parallel paths in the Malvern Hills, and tiers of parallel terraces around the site of the Iron Age fort, British Camp, on the top of the Herefordshire Beacon. William had gone to Malvern, possibly to the hydropathic establishment there, to recuperate from a head injury after falling off his horse (see letter from W. E. Darwin, [13 March 1881] and n. 4; letter from Emma Darwin to G. H. Darwin, 16 March 1881 (DAR 210.3: 5)).
3
William was assisting CD with his observations for Earthworms; see letter to W. E. Darwin, 19 February [1881]. Syenite, an intrusive igneous rock, is the ‘crystalline nucleus’ of the Malvern Hills; the Ludlow formation consists of shale, and steeply abuts the west side of the hills (Murchison 1867, pp. 92–8).
4
William and Sara Darwin were staying at Abinger Hall, the home of Thomas Henry Farrer.
5
Katherine Euphemia (Effie) Farrer, Farrer’s second wife, was William’s cousin. The other guests at Abinger were Francis Turner Palgrave and his wife Cecil Grenville Milnes Palgrave, and Clarke Hawkshaw and his wife Cicely Mary Hawkshaw, Effie and William’s cousin. Ida and Horace Darwin left Down on 19 April for a visit to Abinger (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242); letter from Emma Darwin to G. H. Darwin, [16 April 1881] (DAR 210.3: 8)). Ida was Thomas Henry Farrer’s daughter and Effie’s step-daughter; after a ‘painful & dismal’ stay with them in January, she and Horace had intended not to visit again (see letter from Emma Darwin to G. H. Darwin, 31 January 1881 (DAR 210.3: 2)).
6
William lived in Bassett, near Southampton.
7
The antivivisectionist Frances Power Cobbe had published a letter in The Times, 19 April 1881, p. 8, to contradict CD’s claim in his letter to The Times, 18 April 1881, that a Royal Commission on vivisection in 1875 had proved that accusations of inhumanity levelled against English physiologists were false. CD had written a second letter to The Times, 21 April [1881], in response to Cobbe's letter, ignoring her accusations and simply quoting evidence in support of his claim from the Report of the Royal Commission on vivisection. The reports of parliamentary committees and royal commissions such as this were known as blue books because they had blue paper covers (Frankel 2004).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13141G,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13141G