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To Emma Gärtner   9 June [1860]1

Down Bromley Kent

June 9th

Madam

I thank you sincerely for your most kind note & for your presents,2 which I shall value much & shall no doubt receive in due time. I have long venerated your Father & estimated his two great works most highly.3 I can perfectly well believe that the “search after truth was the leading principle of his life & labours”; I was thoroughily impressed with this, after reading them; & strict conscientiousness seemed to me their noble & prevailing character.—   I shall be very glad to read something of his life; for I remember some few years ago enquiring on the subject, as I had got to feel so much interest in his great labours; but did not then hear of his life.—

Your Father’s name is pretty well known in this country, but not so universally as it ought to be, & not nearly well enough known in France, judging from such French Books as I read. If I can in ever so little degree make it more generally known I shall be pleased; & in my larger work I shall have to quote him far oftener. But your Father’s works have enduring merit, & will certainly be of high service to science many years after I am dead & gone.—

With sincere thanks for your letter, which has given me much satisfaction, & with my gratitude for your most kind presents, believe me Madam, with much respect, | Yours sincerely & obliged | Charles Darwin

1
Dated by the relationship to the letter to Emma Gärtner, 14 July [1860].
2
Emma Gärtner was the daughter of the late German botanist Karl Friedrich von Gärtner, whose works CD frequently cited in his species manuscript (Natural selection) and in Origin and Variation. The ‘presents’ included engravings of Gärtner and a copy of Gustav Jäger’s obituary notice (Jäger 1851). Jäger’s biographical notice, inscribed by Emma Gärtner, is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL. See letter to Emma Gärtner, 14 July [1860].
3
CD studied Gärtner’s works on hybridisation very closely during the 1850s. His annotated copies of Gärtner 1844 and 1849 are in the Darwin Library–CUL; further notes on these works are in DAR 116. See Correspondence vol. 5.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

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Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2827,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2827