To J. D. Hooker   21 November [1857]1

Down Bromley Kent

Nov. 21st

My dear Hooker

I was most sincerely sorry to receive your little note, saying how dangerously ill Mrs. Henslow was.2 I am sure Mrs. Hooker & all at Hitcham have my most sincere sympathy. If the worst does happen & you make any stay at Hitcham do just say to my dear & most kind friend, Henslow, how truly I feel for his sorrow. I will not trouble him with writing to him.— To the last day of my life I shall feel under what deep obligations I lie to Henslow & Mrs. Henslow for their extraordinary kindness to me at Cambridge. How many pleasant little dinners I have had with them; & how invariably kind poor Mrs. Henslow was to me.3 I do hope she has not suffered much. They were like the nearest & most affectionate relations to me.—

My dear Hooker | Yours affectionately | C. Darwin

I shd. like much to have ever so short a scrap to tell me how Henslow is.—

1
Dated by the reference to the illness of Harriet Henslow (see n. 2, below).
2
Harriet Henslow, wife of John Stevens Henslow and Hooker’s mother-in-law, died on 20 November 1857 (Gentleman’s Magazine n.s. 4 (1858) 1: 113).
3
During his undergraduate days at Cambridge, CD was frequently invited to the Henslows’ home. See Correspondence vol. 1.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.7 many] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2174,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2174