Ɛpsilon

To John Price   3 September [1881]1

Down. | Beckenham Kent.

Sep: 3.

My dear Price.

I thank you for your kind & sympathetic letter2   My brothers death is a great loss to all of us, especially to all my children, as his kindness & affection was unbounded.—3 He had become, I think, quite weary of life;—& thank God his suffering at the close was not severe & very short.

I am sorry that I cannot answer your question about the Dotterells, for my memory is a very poor one for small past events.— I remember going with you & Erasmus on ponies a long excursion to some extraordinary wild mountainous scenery but I can remember no more.4

We were all much pleased & interested by your friend Mrs Smith at Ullswater but I did not then know that she was your friend.5

I wish that you had told me something about your own health. & I most truly hope that you suffer less than formerly.

My health is better than it was but I shall never be fit for any great exertion.

My dear Price, | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin.

Copy

1
The year is established by the reference to Erasmus Alvey Darwin’s death.
2
Price’s letter has not been found, but George Howard Darwin had written to inform him of Erasmus’s death (see letter from G. H. Darwin, 28 August 1881).
3
Erasmus had died on 26 August 1881 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
4
The dotterel (Charadrius morinellus), is a species of ringed plover; it usually breeds on remote mountain tops. Price had been at Shrewsbury School with Erasmus and CD.
5
The Darwins had stayed in Patterdale on Ullswater in the Lake District from 3 June to 4 July 1881 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)). In his later letter to Price dated 27 December 1881, CD mentioned Mrs Smith’s death; Price’s friend was therefore most likely Lucy Caroline Smith, a widow who lived for some time before her death on 14 December 1881 in Patterdale (Census returns of England and Wales 1881 (The National Archives: Public Record Office RG11/5530/89/7) and England & Wales, national probate calendar (index of wills and administrations), 1858–1966 (Ancestry.com, accessed 22 April 2021)).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13315,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13315