Ɛpsilon

To Edward Suess   1 June [1871]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

June 1st.

Dear Sir

I thank you most sincerely for the kindness which has led you to inform me of the great & wholly unexpected honour which the Imperial Academy has conferred on me (subject to the proper forms) of electing me a Foreign Honorary Member.2 After the contempt shown by the Paris Institute3 for all that I have tried to do in science, it certainly is highly gratifying that your great Academy should thus favourably notice my work.

I am extremely sorry to hear that you have suffered in your health from your last Expedition.4 How many men have paid dearly for their devotion to Science! May you soon recover: you have my full sympathy, & I am an habitual fellow-sufferer.—

I thank you for telling me about your late celebrated Admiral Tegetthoff.5

With sincere respect | I remain, my dear Sir | Yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from the Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 16 July 1871.
2
Suess’s letter to CD has not been found. CD was elected a member of the Austrian Imperial Academy of Science at a meeting that took place on 26 May 1871 (see letter from the Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 16 July 1871).
3
CD refers to the French Académie des sciences. He had been considered for membership in 1870 but, after having much of his work severely criticised by some members, was not elected (see Correspondence vol. 18, letter from Armand de Quatrefages, 18 July 1870 and n. 6).
4
Suess had travelled in Calabria and Sicily in April 1871 and climbed Mount Etna during his stay (Suess 1916, pp. 227–34).
5
Wilhelm von Tegetthoff died suddenly in April 1871, following a brief illness (Neue Österreichische Biographie).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-7792,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-7792