Ɛpsilon

To G. J. Romanes   17 [December 1881]1

4 Bryanston St.

Saturday 17th

My dear Romanes

I shd. be very sorry to leave London without seeing you, so I will tell you my movements.2 If able to do anything I am going to call on Huxley tomorrow, (Sunday) morning immediately after breakfast.3. This evening at 6 o clock Dr Clark is coming to see me.4 If you could call in midday or in afternoon of Sunday I shd. almost certainly be at home. Also on Monday morning early, though if I happened to be feeling well I shd have liked much to have seen Burdon Sanderson.5 My visit to London has been rather a failure, for I have been able to do hardly anything.—

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The month and year are established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to G. J. Romanes, 10 December [1881].
2
See letter to G. J. Romanes, 10 December [1881] and n. 5. The Darwins were in London from 13 to 20 December 1881 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)). CD had gone to visit Romanes on 16 December 1881, but as Francis Darwin later recalled, ‘was seized when on the door-step with an attack apparently of the same kind which afterwards became so frequent’ (LL 3: 356). As CD told John Wesley Judd, he had ‘received his warning’ (Judd 1910, pp. 158–9).
4
Andrew Clark was CD’s physician.
5
John Scott Burdon Sanderson visited CD on 19 December 1881 and wrote a brief ‘Recollection’ of the visit (University of British Columbia Library, Rare Books and Special Collections (Darwin - Burdon Sanderson letters RBSC-ARC-1731-1-43)).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 without] after del ‘too’
1.3 immediately] after del closing parenthesis
1.3 immediately … breakfast.] interl
1.6 I shd] after del ‘& you’
1.6 much] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13556,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13556