Ɛpsilon

To John Lubbock   [22 November 1857]1

Down

Sunday Morning

Dear Lubbock

At the Philosoph. Club last Thursday I overheard Dr. Sharpey speaking to Huxley in such high & warm praise of your paper & Huxley answering in same tone that it did me good to hear it.2 And I thought I would tell you, for if you still wish to join Royal Socy., I shd. think (Sharpey being influential in Council & Secretary) there cd be no doubt of your admission. Even if you were not admitted the first year it cannot be thought the least disgraceful. I am not aware but perhaps you have been already proposed.—3

Will you be so kind as to give my cordial congratulations & most sincere good wishes to Miss Lubbock.—4 I am very much obliged for my half of the invitation to the Breakfast: it will be a really beautiful sight, but I fear it would be too fatiguing for me so will not venture to accept it.

Believe me dear Lubbock | Yours sincerely | C. Darwin

1
The date is established by CD’s attendance at a meeting of the Royal Society Philosophical Club minutes (see n. 2, below) and by the reference to Miss Lubbock’s engagement breakfast (see n. 4, below).
2
CD attended a meeting of the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society on 19 November 1857 (Royal Society Philosophical Club minutes). William Sharpey, one of the secretaries of the society and a member of the Philosophical Club, was a noted physiologist. The paper under discussion was Lubbock’s study of reproduction in Daphnia (Lubbock 1857).
3
Lubbock was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1858.
4
Mary Harriet Lubbock, John Lubbock’s older sister, was married on 8 December 1857 to Robert Birkbeck of Keswick, Norfolk (Gentleman’s Magazine n.s. 4 (1858): 98).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 I] after del illeg
1.4 (Sharpey] parenthesis over comma
2.3 Breakfast] ‘k’ over ‘f’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2149,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2149