To W. E. Darwin   [3 May 1858]1

[Moor Park]

Monday

My dear William

I have just received your nice note & the Hexagon for which very many thanks, but I hope & think I shall not have to use it, as I had intended, which was delicately to hint to one of the greatest mathematicians that he had made a blunder in his geometry, & sure enough there came a letter yesterday wholly altering what he had previously told me, & which makes my Bees cell go all the better.2 Also thanks about Stripes.3

I am sorry to hear about Mr Wilson’s absence.— You did not send Spark’s bill, if you cannot find, write to him & tell him it is lost & ask for another copy & send it me.—4

You will, I think, hereafter like Campbell’s Lives of Chancellors & it is a capital Book, for you my dear future Lord Chancellor of England to read.—5

I will take your letter home for Mamma to read & ask about paper.—6

I am glad to hear that you are doing a bit of Botany: I suspect you require a dissecting microscope & some practice in dissection, but all about the structure of ovules, is very difficult. Nevertheless with patience you will surely get on. It is a pleasure just to know most of the British plants, as I find all agree, who do know ever so little.—

I have been playing a good deal at Billiards, & have lately got up to my play & made some splendid strokes!

I have at last got up some strength & taken two good long walks in this charming country.

My dear old fellow | Yours | C. D.

1
The final Monday of CD’s stay at Moor Park. CD returned to Down on 4 May 1858 (‘Journal’; Appendix II). The date is confirmed by CD’s reference to ‘Spark’s bill’ (see n. 4, below).
2
CD refers to William Hallowes Miller, professor of mineralogy at Cambridge University, whom he had consulted about the geometry of bees’ cells (see letter to W. H. Miller, [15 April 1858]). The letter to which CD refers has not been found, but see the letter from W. H. Miller, [14 May 1858]. In CD’s notes relating to bees’ cells (DAR 48 (ser. 2): 1), there is a cut-out figure which, when folded, would give a hexagonal prism resembling a bee’s cell. This is possibly the ‘hexagon’ made by William Darwin. Across the figure CD wrote in pencil: ‘Miller can give me better Diagram’.
3
See letters to W. E. Darwin, 11 [February 1858] and 27 [February 1858], in which CD asked William to look out for horses with stripes on their backs. See also letter to W. E. Darwin, [26 April 1858].
4
William Greive Wilson was William Darwin’s tutor. An entry in CD’s Account book (Down House MS), dated 8 May 1858, records a payment of £4 11s. 6d. to ‘Sparks (William’s books)’.
5
Campbell 1845–7. CD had read parts of the work (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 119: 21a,119: 22b). For CD’s intention that his son should become a barrister, see Correspondence vol. 6, letters to W. E. Darwin, [17 February 1857], and to Syms Covington, 22 February 1857.
6
CD returned to Down on 4 May 1858 (‘Journal’; Appendix II). He was probably referring to the wallpaper for the new rooms at Down (see letter to W. E. Darwin, [26 April 1858]).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.2 write] over ‘&’
2.2 ask] after del ‘giv’
5.3 on] altered from ‘one’
5.4 who do] before del ‘ev’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2268,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2268