Ɛpsilon

To G. J. Romanes   7 August [1881]1

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

Augt 7th

My dear Romanes

I received yesterday the enclosed notice, & I send it to you as I have thought that if you notice Dr. Roux’s book in Nature or elswhere this review might possibly be of use to you.—2 As far as I can judge the book ought to be brought before English naturalists.—

You will have heard from Collier, that he has finished my picture.3 All my family who have seen it, think it the best likeness which has taken of me, & as far as I can judge this seems true.

Collier was the most considerate, kind & pleasant painter, a sitter could desire.—

My dear Romanes | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from G. J. Romanes, 8 August 1881.
2
The notice was evidently a review of Wilhelm Roux’s Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus (The struggle of the parts in the organism; Roux 1881). CD had commented on the book in his letter to G. J. Romanes, 16 April 1881. Romanes later reviewed the book in Nature, 29 September 1881, pp. 505–6.
3
On behalf of the Linnean Society, Romanes had arranged for CD to sit for the painter John Collier (see letters from G. J. Romanes, 25 May [1881] and 1 July [1881]).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.1 & … you] interl
1.2 book in] ‘in’ after del comma

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13279,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13279