Ɛpsilon

From Francis Darwin   [after 14 November 1881]1

My dear Father

Many thanks for Pfeffers two letters; the first shows a very nice spirit but is very obscure; the second one I can understand nearly all of   I am extremely glad he believes in the sensitive tips.2 Also that he disagrees with Wiesner about the way external conditions act.3 I think he must have forgotten how impossible it is to discover from his works that he (Pfeffer) agrees with us.

I have had a pleasant letter from Elfving wanting very much to know what we think of Wiesner. Elfving says he always felt doubtful about the sensitiveness of tips to gravity or of tips of cotyls to light. He thinks what Wiesner says about light generally is “pure bosh” and shows him to be as Sachs says “Ein Esel”4   I shall be very glad to get to work on the antiWiesner experiments. I send back the translation of Pfeffer No 2 & have the translation safe. I will send you Elfvings letter   I havn’t got it with me just now.5

I am rather astonished at Sir John’s letter as I never suggested to him as he says that the Feganites might rent it.6 They have evidently got on his soft side by offering £10 instead of £6.

The fishing has been no good either floods or gales of wind up stream so that you cant throw a fly

I shall certainly be back on the 26th or 27th. I wrote a letter to Bessy at Lurgan7 which I am afraid was too late   I thought she wouldn’t start in that gale.

I think the pitcher with roots will be very nice to microscope8

I have had all my abstracts for the Jahresbericht translated by a German lady in London recommended by Williams & Norgate9 | Yr affec | F D

Ubbadub is enough admired here to suit even you10

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to Francis Darwin, 14 November [1881].
2
CD had sent the letters from Wilhelm Pfeffer, 24 October 1881 and 6 November 1881.
3
Pfeffer had criticised Julius Wiesner’s recent work on plant movement (Wiesner 1881; see letter from Wilhelm Pfeffer, 6 November 1881 and nn. 3 and 4).
4
Francis had met Fredrik Elfving in 1879 at the laboratory in Würzburg headed by Julius Sachs (see letter from Francis Darwin, 19 [May 1881] and n. 3). Ein Esel: a donkey or, figuratively, a fool or idiot (German).
5
CD had the letter from Wilhelm Pfeffer, 6 November 1881, translated by Camilla Pattrick (see letter to Camilla Pattrick, [after 6 November 1881]). The letter from Elfving to Francis has not been found.
6
The letter from John Lubbock has not been found. James William Condell Fegan was a non-conformist preacher who had evidently arranged to rent the the Reading Room in Down for services (see also Correspondence vol. 28, letter to J. W. C. Fegan, [before 25 February 1880]).
7
No correspondence between Francis and Elizabeth Darwin has been found in the Darwin Archive–CUL. Lurgan is a town in Ireland.
8
CD had suggested that Francis work on Dischidia rafflesiana (a synonym of D. major); ants nest in the pitchers and the plant gains nutrients from ant waste (see letter to Francis Darwin, 28 [October 1881]).
9
Botanischer Jahresbericht was a review of botanical literature founded in 1874; abstracts of F. Darwin 1880a and F. Darwin 1881b appeared in the 1881 volume of the journal (see Botanischer Jahresbericht 9 (1881): 14–15, 24–5). Williams & Norgate was a London publisher and bookseller specialising in foreign scientific literature. The German translator has not been identified.
10
Bernard Darwin had evidently joined his father in Wales; Francis had gone there to visit his deceased wife’s family in early October (see letter to Francis Darwin, 17 October 1881 and nn. 1 and 14).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13485F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13485F