Ɛpsilon

To J. J. Moulinié   29 August [1868]1

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

Aug 29.

My dear Sir

I shall be delighted to see you here & I am much obliged to you for offering to pay me a visit.2 Your best plan will be to come by the S.E. Railway from Charing Cross to Orpington Station which is 312 miles from my house & where you will find carriages waiting.

I hope you will be able to spare time to sleep here & I will convey you to the station the next morning. I do not know whether Professor Carl Vogt is in London but if so I wish you could persuade him to give me the pleasure & honour of seeing him here at the same time.3

I am bound to tell you that my health is so weak that I find my head will not stand the excitement of more than half an hour’s conversation at a time.

If it should be convenient for you to come tomorrow (Sunday) pray do not mind about giving me notice as I shall be most glad to see you.

Pray believe me | My dear Sir | yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin

LS

1
The year is established by the reference to Moulinié’s visit to Down House (see n. 2, below).
2
Moulinié visited Down on 31 August 1868 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).
3
Vogt had proposed Moulinié as the French translator of Variation (Correspondence vol. 15, letter from Carl Vogt, 23 April 1867); he, and presumably Moulinié, had attended the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Norwich in August 1868 (Correspondence vol. 16, letter from J. D. Hooker, 30 August 1868 and n. 7). There is no record of Vogt’s visiting Down at this time.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6332F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6332F