From Emma Darwin to J. D. Hooker   26 December [1863]

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

Dec 26

Dear Dr Hooker

Charles begs me to tell you that nothing wd please him more than your having a bust of him & if he should get well enough to sit to Mr Woolner he will be sure to let you know but at present I am sorry to say that he could not even sit for 5 minutes.1 One day is a little better & one a little worse but I cannot say that he makes progress at present. He stays in his bed room & gets frequently in & out of bed & occasionally goes down stairs for a very short time, but he can only stand very short visits even of the boys.2 When not very uncomfortable his spirits are wonderfully good, but I am afraid he may remain just as he is very long before there is a struggle in his constitution & that the sickness is conquered.

With Charles & my love to Mrs Hooker3 & you | I am yours very sincerely | E. D.

About America I think the slaves are gradually getting freed & that is what I chiefly care for.4 The Times evidently thinks that is to be deplored,5 but I think all England has to read up Olmsted’s works6 again & get up its Uncle Tom again7

Endorsement: ‘/63’

1
The reference is to the sculptor Thomas Woolner. The letter in which Hooker made this request has not been found. CD did not sit for Woolner until 1868 (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 26 November [1868] (Calendar, no. 6476)).
2
William Erasmus, George Howard, Francis, Leonard, and Horace Darwin.
4
President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which came into effect on 1 January 1863, freed the slaves in those states in rebellion against the Union. The Union forces effectively became armies of liberation (McPherson 1988, pp. 557–8).
5
The Times had maintained a hostile tone towards the Union cause in its coverage of the American Civil War. CD and Emma had long been unhappy with the newspaper’s treatment of the war with regard to slavery (see Correspondence vol. 10, letter to Asa Gray, 16 October [1862], and this volume, letter to Asa Gray, 23 February [1863] and n. 22).
6
Frederick Law Olmsted wrote a number of accounts of the social and economic conditions of the southern states of America: A journey in the seaboard slave states (Olmsted 1856), A journey through Texas (Olmsted 1857), and A journey in the back country (Olmsted 1860); these accounts were republished as a two-volume work entitled Journeys and explorations in the cotton kingdom (Olmsted 1861). CD had read Olmsted 1856 and 1857 (see Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 128: 23 and 128: 25, and Correspondence vol. 9, letter to Asa Gray, 17 September [1861]).
7
A reference to Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe’s novel entitled Uncle Tom’s cabin (Stowe 1852). Stowe’s novel, which was popular in Britain, was an influential indictment of slavery (McPherson 1988, pp. 38–9, 88–9).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4359,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4359