Ɛpsilon

From Louisa Frances Kempson to Emma Darwin   20 June 1867

Plas Maur | Penmaenmawr | Conway

Thursday | 20 June 67.

My dear Aunt Emma

Will you please to tell Uncle Charles, that I have been making enquiries in my nursery about the tears. but I can only give him hearsay evidence as I cannot see so small a thing as a tear   My nurse says that tears begin to stand in a baby’s eyes when they are a few weeks old, & that they begin to run down the cheeks at about six weeks. my baby is just 4 months & the tears run down her cheeks in a piteous manner when she crys, which I am happy to say is very seldom   of course I need not say that there never was such a baby since the world began!1 but I have never seen such a happy good tempered little soul— the whole house is ⁠⟨⁠2? pages missing⁠⟩⁠

My private secretary is gone out boating so Amy fills his place.2

AL incomplete

CD annotations

1.1 Will … tears. 1.2] crossed pencil
1.6 of course … is 1.8] crossed pencil
Top of letter: ‘Mrs. Kempson’ pencil
1
The baby was Jessie Kempson. No letter to Kempson has been found, but CD had evidently been making enquiries about babies’ tears for use in his work on expression (see Expression, pp. 153–4).
2
The private secretary and Amy have not been identified.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5572,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5572