Ɛpsilon

To C. T. Whitley   20 June [1863]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

June 20th

My dear Whitley

I was sincerely glad to receive your note & have news of you;2 for I often think of old days at Cambridge, when I took long walks with the expectant senior wrangler & when he instructed me in Engravings.—3

I thank you cordially for your kind invitation; but my health has been so bad for several years that I have been unable to attend the British Association, & have no hopes for this year.4 In fact for the last two years I have led the life of a hermit, seeing no one & going nowhere; & doing nothing but two or three hours work daily on my good days at natural History. I am become that most wretched & despicable object, a confirmed valetudinarian. I have much, very much, to be thankful for in life; but everyone has his heavy drawbacks & my own health & even more that of my children is our sore drawback. For years we have had one or other of our children invalids. But I have said enough & more than enough.—

Again I thank you sincerely for your kind remembrance of me, & with hearty good wishes, remain | My dear Whitley | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the reference to a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; the allusion is apparently to the meeting that took place in Newcastle in 1863 (see n. 4, below).
2
Whitley’s letter has not been found.
3
CD and Whitley were contemporaries at Shrewsbury School and Cambridge University; Whitley was senior wrangler (that is, first in the final mathematical examination) in 1830 (Alum. Cantab., Correspondence vol. 1).
4
It appears that Whitley had written to CD concerning the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1863 to be held in Newcastle-upon-Tyne from 26 August to 2 September (Report of the 33d meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, p. 1); Whitley was vicar of Bedlington, Northumberland, about twelve miles north of Newcastle (Alum. Cantab.).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4217A,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4217A