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From M. C. Stanley   [16 November 1871]1

Holwood | Beckenham

Thursday Evg

Dear Mr. Darwin

I could not lose a moment on my return home2—& read the article most eagerly. You will be obliged to believe that Mr Crookes has “a craze”.3 It staggers me a good deal.—but I know that my imagination is apt to overpower my judgment!—

I wish I had seen you after you had read the article. I shd. have liked so much to hear what effect it produced on you!—

Yrs very sincerely | M C Derby

1
The date is established by the date of Stanley’s visit to Down and by the reference to Crookes’s article (see nn. 2 and 3, below).
2
Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242) records that Stanley visited Down on 15 November 1871.
3
In the Quarterly Journal of Science for October 1871, the chemist William Crookes described his most recent experiments on the phenomena of spiritualism, which he claimed demonstrated the existence of a new ‘psychic force’ (Crookes 1871).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9208,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9208