To J. D. Hooker   [4 October 1863]1

Malvern Wells2

Sunday

My dear old Friend.

Your note is most pathetic3   I understand well your words: ‘wherever I go, she is there”.— I am so deeply glad that she did not suffer so much, as I feared was inevitable. This was to us with poor Annie the one great comfort.—4 Trust to me that time will do wonders, & without causing forgetfuless of your darling.

I am very weak & can write little.— My nervous system has failed & I am kept going only by repeated doses of brandy; but I am certainly better, much, & sickness stopped.—

God Bless you my best of friends.— Yours affect | C. Darwin

P.S. | I must add that I shall be grateful for a line whenever you are inclined to write.

My head swims badly so no more.—

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from J. D. Hooker, 1 October 1863. In 1863, 4 October was a Sunday.
2
CD was resident in Malvern Wells, Worcestershire, while undergoing treatment at James Smith Ayerst’s hydropathic establishment (see ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 11, Appendix II)).
3
Letter from J. D. Hooker, 1 October 1863. Hooker had written concerning the death of his six-year-old daughter, Maria Elizabeth Hooker.
4
Anne Elizabeth Darwin, the Darwins’ eldest daughter, had died aged 10 in 1851 (see Correspondence vol. 5).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 with poor Annie] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4318,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4318