Ɛpsilon

From Georgina Tollet   17 May [1862]1

30 Q. A. St

May 17

My dear Charles

Accept my best thanks for the Orchid book.2

My head is in too weak a state to read more than 2 or 3 pages at a time, but I enjoy these glimpses of the wonders you have discovered, exceedingly.

I much fear that I have no chance of talking it over with you this summer. Even if I were to get better before June 5, that awful day will certainly make me bad again.3

I wonder if you ever saw a bird’s nest built on the top of another.

In Ld Bradford’s shrubbery there is a hedgesparrow’s on the roof of a wren’s.4

I have not seen Mackintosh yet; all I hear of him alarms me much.5

With best love to Emma & thanks for her letter | Believe me | Yrs. affectly | G Tollet

1
The year is established by reference to the publication of Orchids (see n. 2, below).
2
Tollet’s name appears on CD’s presentation list for Orchids (see Correspondence vol. 10, Appendix IV). Orchids was published on 15 May 1862 (Freeman 1977, p. 112).
3
Tollet refers to the marriage, on 5 June 1862, of her niece, Marianne Caroline Clive, to John Robert Orlando Bridgeman, son of the second earl of Bradford (see n. 4, below).
4
The reference is to George Augustus Frederick Henry Bridgeman, second earl of Bradford.
5
The reference is probably to Emma Darwin’s nephew, James Mackintosh Wedgwood, who was suffering from an incurable cancer (Wedgwood and Wedgwood 1980, pp. 274 and 279).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3556,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3556