Ɛpsilon

To A. P. Tilt   16 December 1881

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.) [4 Bryanston Street, London.]

Dec. 16th 1881

Sir

A letter from you addressed to my late brother Erasmus Darwin of Q. Anne St has been forwarded to me.1 This is clearly a mistake as he had nothing to do with the Congress. I suppose that your letter was intended for me; but I was not a member of the Congress, though I came to London to be introduced to some of the members.2 If my memory does not deceive me I was asked to Lady Burdett-Coutts party, but I did not attend.3 Under these circumstances it wd. clearly be inappropriate to introduce my likeness in your Composition.— To save, however, further correspondence, I may add that if you shd still wish to introduce my likeness, I shall be happy to send you an excellent, unpublished photograph of myself, made by my son Lieut: Darwin R.E.,4 for I have not time to spare or strength to give you a sitting.

Sir | Your obd. servt. | Charles Darwin

1
Tilt’s letter has not been found. Erasmus Alvey Darwin had died on 26 August 1881.
2
CD had been the guest of James Paget at a luncheon held on 3 August 1881 as part of the seventh International Medical Congress in London from 2 to 9 August 1881 (see letter to W. E. Darwin, 4 August [1881] and nn. 4–7). It was the only event he attended.
3
No letter from Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts inviting CD to her garden party has been found. The event took place at Holly Lodge near Highgate, 8 August 1881. In 1882, Tilt completed an oil painting of the event, featuring several of the guests (see Sakula 1982 for more on the party and painting). No image of CD was included in the painting.
4
Leonard Darwin was an officer in the Royal Engineers; he had been appointed instructor in chemistry and photography at the School of Military Engineering, Chatham, in 1877 (ODNB). The photograph was probably one made in 1878 (DAR 225: 119).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.1 from you] interl
1.3 Congress] ‘C’ over ‘c’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13554,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13554