Ɛpsilon

From E. A. Darwin   26 [November 1869 or later]1

26th

Dear Charles

I was talking to Sylvester yesterday and he asked ‘has your nephew a great liking for the army, has he a fancy for it, ah well or it is quite a pity that he does not leave it & go to Cambridge   he’d be certain to become a fellow—2 I’nt that a compliment considering that the summum bonum3 of this life might be obtained—

His opponent he said (Cardew?) was a regular genius & might become anything—a nephew of Ld Westbury—4   he’ll have to go into F Galton’s list as well as Lenny who I see has already a niche in the temple of Fame5

Yours aff | E D

1
The date range is established by the reference to Galton 1869, published in mid-November 1869 (Publisher’s Circular (1869): 791); see n. 5, below.
2
James Joseph Sylvester was a professor at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, where Leonard Darwin was a student. Erasmus Darwin also refers to the University of Cambridge.
3
Summum bonum: the highest good.
4
Philip Cardew passed first into the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, 1868 (ODNB); Leonard Darwin passed second (see Correspondence vol. 16). Cardew’s mother was the second daughter of Richard Bethell, first Baron Westbury; Lord Westbury was lord chancellor from 1861 to 1865 (ODNB).
5
In Francis Galton’s Hereditary genius: an inquiry into its laws and consequences, Leonard was mentioned as coming second in the 1868 examination for the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich (Galton 1869, p. 209).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6539,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6539