To John Lubbock   2 August [1866]1

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

Aug 2—

My dear Lubbock

I am much obliged for your invitation for the 11th. which I should much like to accept but doubt whether I shall have the spirit, but I may perhaps call before the collation.

What I shd like very much better would be to call on Lady Lubbock & you some morning between 12 & 1 when I take my ride;2 but I must find out on what day you generally stay at home. I have read the abstract of your paper in the Athenæum & must tell you how cordially I admired it.3 I do not think I ever read in my life any thing more clearly, concisely & conclusively put.

Believe me ever yours | very truly | Ch. Darwin

P.S. I fear you will think me a great bore but if ever you come across my Primula paper let me have it again.4

LS

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from John Lubbock, 4 August 1866.
2
The reference is to Ellen Frances Lubbock. According to Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242), CD started riding on 4 June 1866. CD was advised by Henry Bence Jones to go riding every day (see letter from H. B. Jones, 10 February [1866] and n. 3).
3
The Athenæum for 21 July 1866, pp. 79–82, carried an abstract of Lubbock’s paper ‘On the present state of archæological science’, delivered at the annual congress of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, held in London from 17 to 19 July 1866. Lubbock had been invited to serve as president of the primeval antiquities section of the congress (see Hutchinson 1914, 1: 82). The paper discussed the methods of archaeology, considered as a branch of science. See Van Riper 1993, pp. 200–1; for more on Lubbock and archaeology, see Correspondence vol. 13.
4
CD refers to ‘Dimorphic condition in Primula’.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5172,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5172