Ɛpsilon

To G. R. Waterhouse   18 January [1853]

Down Farnborough Kent

Jan. 18th.

My dear Waterhouse

I thank you very sincerely for thinking of me & my ailments. Pray give my most respectful compliments & best thanks to M. Deshayes, for his kind interest & advice.1 I will not forget it, but it would require a powerful purchase to drag me from my home to a foreign land. I have just lately had a very bad fortnight, otherwise you wd. have seen me at the Museum this week,2 but till this fortnight I have been much better than for the last 3 years.3 I return you all your Christmas good wishes, & many jolly returns to you. Whenever I see you, I shall make myself disagreeable by asking you what original work you have begun, that your fair name may grow better & better known & honoured.—4

My dear Waterhouse | Ever yours | C. Darwin

1
Gérard Paul Deshayes, a French palaeontologist and conchologist, was working at the British Museum cataloguing the collection of bivalve molluscs.
2
Waterhouse was on the staff of the mineralogical and geological department in the British Museum.
3
CD’s Health diary (Down House MS) from 4 to 16 January 1853 records his condition as ‘poorly’ or ‘not quite well’. Specific afflictions mentioned during the period are boils, flatulence, and vomiting. For CD’s spell of good health, see letter to W. D. Fox, 24 [October 1852], n. 3.
4
Because of the French revolution of 1848, Hippolyte Baillière had ceased publication of Waterhouse’s A natural history of the Mammalia with the last part of the second volume (Rodentia) (see Correspondence vol. 4, letter to G. R. Waterhouse, [January–June 1850]). Waterhouse did not recommence this work and was publishing entomological papers at this time.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-944,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-944