To Susan Darwin   29 January [1826]

My dear Susan

The whole family have been so very good in writing to me so often that I do not know whom to begin to thank first, so to save trouble I return my humble thanks to you all, from my Father down to little Kitty.— The Gaieties of Edinburgh are now just beginning, last week there was an Assembly, & shortly there will be another. Erasmus & ⁠⟨⁠    ⁠⟩⁠ intended to have gone to the first, but mean to make it up by going to the next.— We also have been very dissipated.— We dined at D^r. Hawley’s on Saturday, & had a very pleasant party, after which we went to the Theatre, with a M^r. Greville I believe a relation of the great Botanist, D^r. Greville.¹ D^r. Hawley has procured some information about my Fathers questions & will write it shortly to him. Next Friday we are going to the old D^r. Duncan,² & I hope it will be a pleasanter party than the last; which a very specimen of stupidity. What an extraordinary old man he is, now being past 80, & continuing to lecture. D^r. Hawley hints that he is rapidly failing. I have been most shockingly idle, actually reading two novels at once. a good scolding would do me a vast deal of good, & I hope you will send one of your most severe one’s.— What an entertaining book Granby is;³ do you remember Lady Harriet talking about inhaling ⁠⟨⁠Ni⁠⟩⁠tric Oxide? Johnson has actually done it, & describes the effects as the most intense pleasure he ever felt. We both mean to get tipsey in the Vacation.—. The old M^r. Wedgwood, I see in Ure’s Chem. Dic.,⁴ did nothing else but hold his nose & kick. It occasionally brings on fainting. Erasmus knows a man in Cambridge, who when in that state had the faculty of hearing, but not of motion or speech & to his horror, heard them consulting whether they should open the Temporal Artery.— Poor Eyre⁵ is most dangerously ill of a Fever, a friend of his has written to Erasmus stating that Eyre has a great wish to see him.— Erasmus is in a state of great perplexity what what to do, since he could not set out directly on account of not having sufficient money & by the time he could get there the fever in all probability would have terminated ⁠⟨⁠one w⁠⟩⁠ay or another. So he has written to his ⁠⟨⁠    ⁠⟩⁠ [ther] to find out some more particulars. ⁠⟨⁠We⁠⟩⁠ met when we dined at D^r. Hope’s, a M^r. Stuart, whose father was twin brother to Lord Murray or Moray   I suppose this can be no relation to the Lady Jane Stuart My Father mentioned.— Would you also tell my Father that I should be much obliged if would pay Wilding’s bill, & am quite ashamed that I forgot it myself. I am going to learn to stuff birds, from a blackamoor⁶ I believe an old servant of D^r. Duncan: it has the recommmendation of cheapness, if it has nothing else, as he only charges one guinea, for an hour every day for two months.

I rem. n— | Charles Darwin

Catherine mentions that D^r. Parker is very fond of Spark   I hope he will not forget, that she is Erasmus’, & that he returns at the end of April.—

P.S. This letter was written & sealed & I have reopened it, to acknowledge & thank for the monies. Good Bye—