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To W. D. Fox   22 February [1857]1

Down Bromley Kent

Feb. 22d.

My dear Fox

I am much obliged for your various enclosures, viz (1st) about yourself, & most heartily glad I am that Dr. Gully has done you some good.—2

Emma desires to be most kindly remembered to Mrs. Fox & we are very glad that she & the little girl are both well.—3

I hope that your nephew may succeed in finding some lizard eggs;4 for it seems that he will try his best to ascertain the point in question.— By the way I have just had Helix Pomatia quite healthy after 20 days submersion in salt-water.—

Thanks about Pea case: it is a very great puzzle to me; for if I could trust to my observations on Bees, I cannot see how they can avoid being crossed; but the evidence certainly preponderates on your side, & most heavily in case of Sweet Peas.—5 I suppose the Queen Pea flowered at same time with adjoining Peas: are you sure of this?

With respect to Clapham School: I think favourably of it: the Boys are not so exclusively kept to Classics: arithmetic is made much of: all are taught drawing, & some modern languages.—6 I was rather frightened by having heard that it was rather a rough school; but young Herschel did not agree to this;7 & Georgy is rather a soft Boy & I cannot find out that he has anything to complain of, though of a very home-sick, disposition. I will at any time answer any queries in detail: I do not know, but could find out, whether Clergymen’s sons are charged less.—

My wife agrees very heartily with your preachment against overwork, & wishes to go to Malvern; but I doubt: yet I suppose I shall take a little holiday sometime; perhaps to Tenby: though how I can leave all my experiments, I know not.—8

I am got most deeply interested in my subject; though I wish I could set less value on the bauble fame, either present or posthumous, than I do, but not, I think, to any extreme degree; yet, if I know myself, I would work just as hard, though with less gusto, if I knew that my Book wd be published for ever anonymously

Farewell, my dear Fox | Ever yours | C. Darwin

1
Dated by the reference to the birth of Fox’s daughter (see n. 3, below).
2
James Manby Gully ran a hydropathic establishment in Malvern. For CD’s and Fox’s previous correspondence about Gully and hydropathy, see Correspondence vol. 4.
3
Ellen Sophia Fox had given birth to a daughter, Edith Darwin Fox, on 13 February 1857 (Darwin pedigree).
4
See letter to W. D. Fox, 20 October [1856]. CD had first requested Fox’s assistance in helping him procure lizard eggs in 1855 (Correspondence vol. 5, letters to W. D. Fox, 17 May [1855] and 23 May [1855]). CD wished to see whether they could withstand prolonged exposure to salt water to help explain the pattern of dispersal of lizards.
5
Of all the Leguminosae, the sweetpea (Lathyrus odoratus) presented CD with the greatest challenge to his hypothesis that all organic beings must occasionally cross-fertilise. See Natural selection, p. 70, for a discussion of the evidence for and against the possibility of cross-fertilisation in sweetpeas.
6
George Howard Darwin was attending Clapham Grammar School. See J. R. Moore 1977.
7
Alexander Stewart Herschel, son of John Frederick William Herschel, was also at Clapham Grammar School.
8
CD eventually went to Moor Park, a hydropathic establishment in Surrey, from 22 April until 6 May. CD and Emma’s daughter, Anne Elizabeth Darwin, had died at Gully’s hydropathic establishment in Malvern in 1851 (see Correspondence vol. 5).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 (1st)] interl
2.2 she] ‘s’ over ‘t’
4.3 side] altered from ‘sides’
6.1 heartily] above ‘heatily’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2057,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2057