To John Lubbock   9 August [1861]1

2. Hesketh Crescent | Torquay

Aug 9th.

My dear Lubbock

Your kindness has been so unbounded & your assistance so valuable that it is no use trying to thank you. You have laid William & myself under an enduring obligation.—2 We have not heard this morning from Mr. Hacon (as I had hoped) his final opinion;3 & we are trying to keep open till tomorrow morning, till we see Mr Hacon’s deliberate opinion; but in fact we shall be far more guided by your general impression, & I think (unless Mr Hacon’s argument should seem very strong) that we shall agree.— The clause certainly seems rather harsh, but a hundred, or rather a thousand, to one, it would never signify.—

When I have written to Mr Atherley tomorrow finally, I will tell you the result.—

I have been twice hunting Lepismas with very little success,—but William went yesterday & this morning & with much difficulty caught 7 or 8; only one is large. It really is almost impossible to get them without injuring them.—4

I send them by this post in tin-Bottle— Please send the Bottle sometime to my House, as it belongs to one of the Boys. If you want more, we will go again to the one spot where we can find them.—

Pray give our thanks to Sir John & Mr Ellice5 & believe me.— Yours cordially obliged | Charles Darwin

I have just had long letter on Species from Kingsley6

1
The year is given by the Darwins’ stay in Torquay (see ‘Journal’; Appendix II).
2
Lubbock, a partner with his father John William Lubbock in the London bank Robarts, Lubbock & Co., had informed CD in June that a Southampton banker, George Atherley, was seeking a new partner. He wondered whether William Darwin, who was in his final year of studies at Cambridge University, might be interested in the offer. CD had subsequently relied on the Lubbocks’ advice and mediation concerning the negotiations conducted by his solicitor, William Mackmurdo Hacon. See the letters to John Lubbock beginning with that of [25 May 1861].
4
Lubbock asked CD and his sons, who were keen entomologists, to collect specimens of Lepisma, the silver-fish (see letter to John Lubbock, 1 [and 2] August [1861]).
5
Russell Ellice was a partner in Robarts, Lubbock & Co. (Banking almanac 1861).
6
The letter from Charles Kingsley has not been found. An avid naturalist, Kingsley had written to CD shortly after the publication of Origin to express his initial approval of the work and his intention to read it carefully at a later date (see Correspondence vol. 7, letter from Charles Kingsley, 18 November 1859).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.4 hoped)] parenthesis over comma
3.2 much] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3228,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3228