Ɛpsilon

To Raphael Meldola   2 February 1882

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

Feb. 2d 1882

Dear Mr. Meldola

I am very sorry that I can add nothing to my very brief notice, without reading again Weismann’s work & getting up the whole subject by reading my own & other books, & for so much labour I have not strength.1 I have now been working at other subjects for some years, & when a man grows as old as I am, it is a great wrench to his brain to go back to old & half-forgotten subjects. You would not readily believe how often I am asked questions of all kinds, & quite lately I have had to give up much time to do a work, not at all concerning myself, but which I did not like to refuse.2 I must, however, somewhere draw the line, or my life will be a misery to me.—

I have read your Preface & it seems to me excellent.3 I am sorry in many ways, including the honour of England as a scientific country, that your Translation has as yet sold badly.— Does the Publisher or do you lose by it? If the Publisher,, though I shall be sorry for him, yet it is in the way of business; but if you yourself lose by it, I earnestly beg you to allow me to subscribe a trifle, viz ten guineas, towards the expense of this work, which you have undertaken on public grounds.—4

Pray believe me | yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin

1
See letter from Raphael Meldola, 31 January 1882. In 1880, CD had written a short prefatory notice for Meldola’s translation of August Weismann’s Studien zur Descendenz-Theorie (Weismann 1875–6); the translation was published in three parts between 1880 and 1882 (Weismann 1880–2). CD’s copy of the work is in the Darwin Library–Down.
2
The ‘work’ may refer to some writing CD mentioned in the letter to G. J. Romanes, 28 January 1882.
3
Meldola’s preface (Weismann 1880–2, pp. vii–xiv) was dated November 1881.
4
Weismann 1880–2 was paid for by subscription (see Correspondence vol. 27, letter from Raphael Meldola, 6 February 1879). CD’s Classed account book (Down House MS) records a payment of £1 10s. on 7 May 1880 to ‘Sampson Low for Weisman’; no further payments are recorded. CD evidently did not know whether the publisher, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, had arranged with Meldola to publish at their expense or on commission. In the latter case, Meldola could have lost money if sales were poor.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.3 &] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13654,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13654