To W. E. Darwin   [25 October 1862]1

My dear William.—

one word to say that if a Sunday be fine I shd. be very glad if you would test your observation on mid-styled & see what difference is in pods.—2 You might get 12 dozen pods from other plant. Also, if then you could step distance from the old long-styled to nearest other plant & look what form that is.— I shall not publish this year & shall work out whole case very carefully.—3

We are most sincerely sorry about Maude A.—4

In Haste. Your | C. Darwin

Etty came home yesterday very brisk.—5

Poor Mamma is unwell with very feverish cold.—6

Saturday. Down—

1
The date is established by the relationship to the letters from W. E. Darwin, 21 October [1862] and 28 October 1862; the intervening Saturday was 25 October 1862.
2
For William’s comments on the seed-pods of Lythrum salicaria see the letter from W. E. Darwin, 23 October [1862]; see also the letter to W. E. Darwin, 30 [October 1862].
3
William was assisting his father by collecting seed-pods from wild plants of Lythrum salicaria (see the letters from W. E. Darwin 21 October [1862] and 23 October [1862]); however, CD had concluded that he would have to perform a further 126 crosses before he could publish his results (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 27 [October 1862] and n. 11). CD’s paper, ‘Three forms of Lythrum salicaria’, was read before the Linnean Society of London on 16 June 1864; he reported observations based on William’s specimens on page 173 of the published paper (Collected papers 2: 109–10).
5
Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242) records that Henrietta Emma Darwin returned to Down House on 22 October 1862, and that on 24 October she was ‘languid in [the] m[ornin]g as before’.
6
On 25 October 1862, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary (DAR 242) that she took to her bed feeling ‘feverish’ with a ‘bad cold’.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.4 nearest] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3782,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3782