Ɛpsilon

To Francis Darwin   20 May 1881

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

May 20 1881

My dear F.

Bernard is quite jolly: as Bessy is away & mother has been headachy & is in bed to day, the house is very dull for him, but I never in all my life saw so contented a little man, for he seems quite happy.— One great amusement is scheming about an army with elephants, camels, cannons—Bombs & God knows what, to besiege Strasburg, until at last Dr. De Bary is compelled to say “Mr. Dada you must go home at once”.—1

I have been working the whole of this morning at your corrections of Ch., II. They are all excellent, & all but one accepted.—2 You make everything as clear as daylight, but it distresses me that you shd. have such labour.— I think that I could find the pencil crosses; but you certainly save me all trouble.— I hope Ch. III. despatched yesterday will not be so troublesome; anyhow it is shorter.—

There is a roll of old & very dirty M.S. from the Linnean Socy. come addressed to you, all about the machine—clinostat—with the old drawings—3 I suppose that you do not want it, but it shall be preserved.—

I am very tired—so good Bye. | C. Darwin

1
Bernard Darwin was Francis’s son; Elizabeth Darwin was Francis’s sister, and lived at Down House. Francis was working in the laboratory of Anton de Bary in Straßburg (Strasbourg).
2
CD and Francis had recently begun correcting proof-sheets for Earthworms (see letter from Francis Darwin, 14 May 1881).
3
The manuscript about the clinostat (klinostat; a rotating plant-holder used to test the influence of gravity) has not been identified. Horace Darwin had built a version of the apparatus that Francis used in his experimental work; it is described in detail and with several diagrams in F. Darwin 1880a, pp. 449–55. See also A. Secord 2019, pp. 103–4.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.4 cannons] above del ‘cannot’
1.4 God] ‘G’ over ‘g’
2.4 me] above del ‘me’
3.1 come … to you, 3.2] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13169,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13169