Down, January 29th [1853].

My dear Fox,

Your last account some months ago was so little satisfactory that I have often been thinking of you, and should be really obliged if you would give me a few lines, and tell me how your voice and chest are. I most sincerely hope that your report will be good…Our second lad has a strong mechanical turn, and we think of making him an engineer. I shall try and find out for him some less classical school, perhaps Bruce Castle. I certainly should like to see more diversity in education than there is in any ordinary school–no exercising of the observing or reasoning faculties, no general knowledge acquired–I must think it a wretched system. On the other hand, a boy who has learnt to stick at Latin and conquer its difficulties, ought to be able to stick at any labour. I should always be glad to hear anything about schools or education from you. I am at my old, never-ending subject, but trust I shall really go to press in a few months with my second volume on Cirripedes. I have been much pleased by finding some odd facts in my first volume believed by Owen and a few others, whose good opinion I regard as final…Do write pretty soon, and tell me all you can about yourself and family; and I trust your report of yourself may be much better than your last.

…I have been very little in London of late, and have not seen Lyell since his return from America; how lucky he was to exhume with his own hand parts of three skeletons of reptiles out of the Carboniferous strata, and out of the inside of a fossil tree, which had been hollow within.

Farewell, my dear Fox, yours affectionately,
Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin to W.D. Fox.

13 Sea Houses, Eastbourne,
[July 15th? 1853].

My dear Fox,

Here we are in a state of profound idleness, which to me is a luxury; and we should all, I believe, have been in a state of high enjoyment, had it not been for the detestable cold gales and much rain, which always gives much ennui to children away from their homes. I received your letter of 13th June, when working like a slave with Mr. Sowerby at drawing for my second volume, and so put off answering it till when I knew I should be at leisure. I was extremely glad to get your letter. I had intended a couple of months ago sending you a savage or supplicating jobation to know how you were, when I met Sir P. Egerton, who told me you were well, and, as usual, expressed his admiration of your doings, especially your farming, and the number of animals, including children, which you kept on your land. Eleven children, ave Maria! it is a serious look-out for you. Indeed, I look at my five boys as something awful, and hate the very thoughts of professions, etc. If one could insure moderate health for them it would not signify so much, for I cannot but hope, with the enormous emigration, professions will somewhat improve. But my bugbear is hereditary weakness. I particularly like to hear all that you can say about education, and you deserve to be scolded for saying “you did not mean to torment me with a long yarn.” You ask about Rugby. I like it very well, on the same principle as my neighbour, Sir J. Lubbock, likes Eton, viz., that it is not worse than any other school; the expense, with all etc., etc., including some clothes, travelling expenses, etc., is from 110 pounds to 120 pounds per annum. I do not think schools are so wicked as they were, and far more industrious. The boys, I think, live too secluded in their separate studies; and I doubt whether they will get so much knowledge of character as boys used to do; and this, in my opinion, is the one good of public schools over small schools. I should think the only superiority of a small school over home was forced regularity in their work, which your boys perhaps get at your home, but which I do not believe my boys would get at my home. Otherwise, it is quite lamentable sending boys so early in life from their home.

…To return to schools. My main objection to them, as places of education, is the enormous proportion of time spent over classics. I fancy (though perhaps it is only fancy) that I can perceive the ill and contracting effect on my eldest boy’s mind, in checking interest in anything in which reasoning and observation come into play. Mere memory seems to be worked. I shall certainly look out for some school with more diversified studies for my younger boys. I was talking lately to the Dean of Hereford, who takes most strongly this view; and he tells me that there is a school at Hereford commencing on this plan; and that Dr. Kennedy at Shrewsbury is going to begin vigorously to modify that school…

I am extremely glad to hear that you approved of my cirripedial volume. I have spent an almost ridiculous amount of labour on the subject, and certainly would never have undertaken it had I foreseen what a job it was. I hope to have finished by the end of the year. Do write again before a very long time; it is a real pleasure to me to hear from you. Farewell, with my wife’s kindest remembrances to yourself and Mrs. Fox.

My dear old friend, yours affectionately,
C. Darwin.

Charles Darwin to W.D. Fox.

Down, August 10th [1853].

My dear Fox,

I thank you sincerely for writing to me so soon after your most heavy misfortune. Your letter affected me so much. We both most truly sympathise with you and Mrs. Fox. We too lost, as you may remember, not so very long ago, a most dear child, of whom I can hardly yet bear to think tranquilly; yet, as you must know from your own most painful experience, time softens and deadens, in a manner truly wonderful, one’s feelings and regrets. At first it is indeed bitter. I can only hope that your health and that of poor Mrs. Fox may be preserved, and that time may do its work softly, and bring you all together, once again, as the happy family, which, as I can well believe, you so lately formed.

My dear Fox, your affectionate friend,
Charles Darwin.

[The following letter refers to the Royal Society's Medal, which was awarded to him in November, 1853:]

Down, March 7th [1852].

My dear Fox,

It is indeed an age since we have had any communication, and very glad I was to receive your note. Our long silence occurred to me a few weeks since, and I had then thought of writing, but was idle. I congratulate and condole with you on your tenth child; but please to observe when I have a tenth, send only condolences to me. We have now seven children, all well, thank God, as well as their mother; of these seven, five are boys; and my father used to say that it was certain that a boy gave as much trouble as three girls; so that bona fide we have seventeen children. It makes me sick whenever I think of professions; all seem hopelessly bad, and as yet I cannot see a ray of light. I should very much like to talk over this (by the way, my three bugbears are Californian and Australian gold, beggaring me by making my money on mortgage worth nothing; the French coming by the Westerham and Sevenoaks roads, and therefore enclosing Down; and thirdly, professions for my boys), and I should like to talk about education, on which you ask me what we are doing. No one can more truly despise the old stereotyped stupid classical education than I do; but yet I have not had courage to break through the trammels. After many doubts we have just sent our eldest boy to Rugby, where for his age he has been very well placed…I honour, admire, and envy you for educating your boys at home. What on earth shall you do with your boys? Towards the end of this month we go to see W. at Rugby, and thence for five or six days to Susan (His sister.) at Shrewsbury; I then return home to look after the babies, and E. goes to F. Wedgwood’s of Etruria for a week. Very many thanks for your most kind and large invitation to Delamere, but I fear we can hardly compass it. I dread going anywhere, on account of my stomach so easily failing under any excitement. I rarely even now go to London; not that I am at all worse, perhaps rather better, and lead a very comfortable life with my three hours of daily work, but it is the life of a hermit. My nights are always bad, and that stops my becoming vigorous. You ask about water-cure. I take at intervals of two or three months, five or six weeks of moderately severe treatment, and always with good effect. Do you come here, I pray and beg whenever you can find time; you cannot tell how much pleasure it would give me and E. I have finished the 1st volume for the Ray Society of Pedunculated Cirripedes, which, as I think you are a member, you will soon get. Read what I describe on the sexes of Ibla and Scalpellum. I am now at work on the Sessile Cirripedes, and am wonderfully tired of my job: a man to be a systematic naturalist ought to work at least eight hours per day. You saw through me, when you said that I must have wished to have seen the effects of the [word illegible] Debacle, for I was saying a week ago to E., that had I been as I was in old days, I would have been certainly off that hour. You ask after Erasmus; he is much as usual, and constantly more or less unwell. Susan (His sister.) is much better, and very flourishing and happy. Catherine (Another sister.) is at Rome, and has enjoyed it in a degree that is quite astonishing to my dry old bones. And now I think I have told you enough, and more than enough about the house of Darwin; so my dear old friend, farewell. What pleasant times we had in drinking coffee in your rooms at Christ’s College, and think of the glories of Crux major. (The beetle Panagaeus crux-major.) Ah, in those days there were no professions for sons, no ill-health to fear for them, no Californian gold, no French invasions. How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children. My dread is hereditary ill-health. Even death is better for them.

My dear Fox, your sincere friend,
C. Darwin.

P.S.–Susan has lately been working in a way which I think truly heroic about the scandalous violation of the Act against children climbing chimneys. We have set up a little Society in Shrewsbury to prosecute those who break the law. It is all Susan’s doing. She has had very nice letters from Lord Shaftesbury and the Duke of Sutherland, but the brutal Shropshire squires are as hard as stones to move. The Act out of London seems most commonly violated. It makes one shudder to fancy one of one’s own children at seven years old being forced up a chimney–to say nothing of the consequent loathsome disease and ulcerated limbs, and utter moral degradation. If you think strongly on this subject, do make some inquiries; add to your many good works, this other one, and try to stir up the magistrates. There are several people making a stir in different parts of England on this subject. It is not very likely that you would wish for such, but I could send you some essays and information if you so liked, either for yourself or to give away.

Charles Darwin to W.D. Fox.

Down [October 24th, 1852].

My dear Fox,

I received your long and most welcome letter this morning, and will answer it this evening, as I shall be very busy with an artist, drawing Cirripedia, and much overworked for the next fortnight. But first you deserve to be well abused–and pray consider yourself well abused–for thinking or writing that I could for one minute be bored by any amount of detail about yourself and belongings. It is just what I like hearing; believe me that I often think of old days spent with you, and sometimes can hardly believe what a jolly careless individual one was in those old days. A bright autumn evening often brings to mind some shooting excursion from Osmaston. I do indeed regret that we live so far off each other, and that I am so little locomotive. I have been unusually well of late (no water-cure), but I do not find that I can stand any change better than formerly…The other day I went to London and back, and the fatigue, though so trifling, brought on my bad form of vomiting. I grieve to hear that your chest has been ailing, and most sincerely do I hope that it is only the muscles; how frequently the voice fails with the clergy. I can well understand your reluctance to break up your large and happy party and go abroad; but your life is very valuable, so you ought to be very cautious in good time. You ask about all of us, now five boys (oh! the professions; oh! the gold; and oh! the French–these three oh’s all rank as dreadful bugbears) and two girls…but another and the worst of my bugbears is hereditary weakness. All my sisters are well except Mrs. Parker, who is much out of health; and so is Erasmus at his poor average: he has lately moved into Queen Anne Street. I had heard of the intended marriage (To the Rev. J. Hughes.) of your sister Frances. I believe I have seen her since, but my memory takes me back some twenty-five years, when she was lying down. I remember well the delightful expression of her countenance. I most sincerely wish her all happiness.

I see I have not answered half your queries. We like very well all that we have seen and heard of Rugby, and have never repented of sending [W.] there. I feel sure schools have greatly improved since our days; but I hate schools and the whole system of breaking through the affections of the family by separating the boys so early in life; but I see no help, and dare not run the risk of a youth being exposed to the temptations of the world without having undergone the milder ordeal of a great school.

I see you even ask after our pears. We have lots of Beurrees d’Aremberg, Winter Nelis, Marie Louise, and “Ne plus Ultra,” but all off the wall; the standard dwarfs have borne a few, but I have no room for more trees, so their names would be useless to me. You really must make a holiday and pay us a visit sometime; nowhere could you be more heartily welcome. I am at work at the second volume of the Cirripedia, of which creatures I am wonderfully tired. I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a sailor in a slow-sailing ship. My first volume is out; the only part worth looking at is on the sexes of Ibla and Scalpellum. I hope by next summer to have done with my tedious work. Farewell,–do come whenever you can possibly manage it.

I cannot but hope that the carbuncle may possibly do you good: I have heard of all sorts of weaknesses disappearing after a carbuncle. I suppose the pain is dreadful. I agree most entirely, what a blessed discovery is chloroform. When one thinks of one’s children, it makes quite a little difference in one’s happiness. The other day I had five grinders (two by the elevator) out at a sitting under this wonderful substance, and felt hardly anything.

My dear old friend, yours very affectionately,
Charles Darwin.

Down, October 12th, 1849.

…By the way, one of the pleasantest parts of the British Association was my journey down to Birmingham with Mrs. Sabine, Mrs. Reeve, and the Colonel; also Col. Sykes and Porter. Mrs. Sabine and myself agreed wonderfully on many points, and in none more sincerely than about you. We spoke about your letters from the Erebus; and she quite agreed with me, that you and the author (Sir J. Hooker wrote the spirited description of cattle hunting in Sir J. Ross’s ‘Voyage of Discovery in the Southern Regions,’ 1847, vol. ii., page 245.), of the description of the cattle hunting in the Falklands, would have made a capital book together! A very nice woman she is, and so is her sharp and sagacious mother…Birmingham was very flat compared to Oxford, though I had my wife with me. We saw a good deal of the Lyells and Horners and Robinsons (the President); but the place was dismal, and I was prevented, by being unwell, from going to Warwick, though that, i.e., the party, by all accounts, was wonderfully inferior to Blenheim, not to say anything of that heavenly day at Dropmore. One gets weary of all the spouting…

You ask about my cold-water cure; I am going on very well, and am certainly a little better every month, my nights mend much slower than my days. I have built a douche, and am to go on through all the winter, frost or no frost. My treatment now is lamp five times per week, and shallow bath for five minutes afterwards; douche daily for five minutes, and dripping sheet daily. The treatment is wonderfully tonic, and I have had more better consecutive days this month than on any previous ones…I am allowed to work now two and a half hours daily, and I find it as much as I can do, for the cold-water cure, together with three short walks, is curiously exhausting; and I am actually forced to go to bed at eight o’clock completely tired. I steadily gain in weight, and eat immensely, and am never oppressed with my food. I have lost the involuntary twitching of the muscle, and all the fainting feelings, etc–black spots before eyes, etc. Dr. Gully thinks he shall quite cure me in six or nine months more.

The greatest bore, which I find in the water-cure, is the having been compelled to give up all reading, except the newspapers; for my daily two and a half hours at the Barnacles is fully as much as I can do of anything which occupies the mind; I am consequently terribly behind in all scientific books. I have of late been at work at mere species describing, which is much more difficult than I expected, and has much the same sort of interest as a puzzle has; but I confess I often feel wearied with the work, and cannot help sometimes asking myself what is the good of spending a week or fortnight in ascertaining that certain just perceptible differences blend together and constitute varieties and not species. As long as I am on anatomy I never feel myself in that disgusting, horrid, cui bono, inquiring, humour. What miserable work, again, it is searching for priority of names. I have just finished two species, which possess seven generic, and twenty-four specific names! My chief comfort is, that the work must be sometime done, and I may as well do it, as any one else.

I have given up my agitation against mihi and nobis; my paper is too long to send to you, so you must see it, if you care to do so, on your return. By-the-way, you say in your letter that you care more for my species work than for the Barnacles; now this is too bad of you, for I declare your decided approval of my plain Barnacle work over theoretic species work, had very great influence in deciding me to go on with the former, and defer my species paper…

[The following letter refers to the death of his little daughter, which took place at Malvern on April 24, 1851:]

Charles Darwin to W.D. Fox.

Down, April 29th [1851].

My dear Fox,

I do not suppose you will have heard of our bitter and cruel loss. Poor dear little Annie, when going on very well at Malvern, was taken with a vomiting attack, which was at first thought of the smallest importance; but it rapidly assumed the form of a low and dreadful fever, which carried her off in ten days. Thank God, she suffered hardly at all, and expired as tranquilly as a little angel. Our only consolation is that she passed a short, though joyous life. She was my favourite child; her cordiality, openness, buoyant joyousness and strong affections made her most lovable. Poor dear little soul. Well it is all over…

Malvern, April 9th, 1849.

My dear Hooker,

The very next morning after posting my last letter (I think on 23rd of March), I received your two interesting gossipaceous and geological letters; and the latter I have since exchanged with Lyell for his. I will write higglety-pigglety just as subjects occur. I saw the Review in the ‘Athenaeum,’ it was written in an ill-natured spirit; but the whole virus consisted in saying that there was not novelty enough in your remarks for publication. No one, nowadays, cares for reviews. I may just mention that my Journal got some real good abuse, “presumption,” etc.,–ended with saying that the volume appeared “made up of the scraps and rubbish of the author’s portfolio.” I most truly enter into what you say, and quite believe you that you care only for the review with respect to your father; and that this alone would make you like to see extracts from your letters more properly noticed in this same periodical. I have considered to the very best of my judgment whether any portion of your present letters are adapted for the ‘Athenaeum’ (in which I have no interest; the beasts not having even noticed my three geological volumes which I had sent to them), and I have come to the conclusion it is better not to send them. I feel sure, considering all the circumstances, that without you took pains and wrote with care, a condensed and finished sketch of some striking feature in your travels, it is better not to send anything. These two letters are, moreover, rather too geological for the ‘Athenaeum,’ and almost require woodcuts. On the other hand, there are hardly enough details for a communication to the Geological Society. I have not the smallest doubt that your facts are of the highest interest with regard to glacial action in the Himalaya; but it struck both Lyell and myself that your evidence ought to have been given more distinctly…

I have written so lately that I have nothing to say about myself; my health prevented me going on with a crusade against “mihi” and “nobis,” of which you warn me of the dangers. I showed my paper to three or four Naturalists, and they all agreed with me to a certain extent: with health and vigour, I would not have shown a white feather, [and] with aid of half-a-dozen really good Naturalists, I believe something might have been done against the miserable and degrading passion of mere species naming. In your letter you wonder what “Ornamental Poultry” has to do with Barnacles; but do not flatter yourself that I shall not yet live to finish the Barnacles, and then make a fool of myself on the subject of species, under which head ornamental Poultry are very interesting…

Charles Darwin to C. Lyell.

The Lodge, Malvern [June, 1849].

…I have got your book (‘A Second Visit to the United States.’), and have read all the first and a small part of the second volume (reading is the hardest work allowed here), and greatly I have been interested by it. It makes me long to be a Yankee. E. desires me to say that she quite “gloated” over the truth of your remarks on religious progress…I delight to think how you will disgust some of the bigots and educational dons. As yet there has not been much Geology or Natural History, for which I hope you feel a little ashamed. Your remarks on all social subjects strike me as worthy of the author of the ‘Principles.’ And yet (I know it is prejudice and pride) if I had written the Principles, I never would have written any travels; but I believe I am more jealous about the honour and glory of the Principles than you are yourself…

Charles Darwin to C. Lyell.

September 14th, 1849.

…I go on with my aqueous processes, and very steadily but slowly gain health and strength. Against all rules, I dined at Chevening with Lord Mahon, who did me the great honour of calling on me, and how he heard of me I can’t guess. I was charmed with Lady Mahon, and any one might have been proud at the pieces of agreeableness which came from her beautiful lips with respect to you. I like old Lord Stanhope very much; though he abused Geology and Zoology heartily. “To suppose that the Omnipotent God made a world, found it a failure, and broke it up, and then made it again, and again broke it up, as the Geologists say, is all fiddle faddle. Describing Species of birds and shells, etc., is all fiddle faddle…”

I am heartily glad we shall meet at Birmingham, as I trust we shall, if my health will but keep up. I work now every day at the Cirripedia for 2 1/2 hours, and so get on a little, but very slowly. I sometimes, after being a whole week employed and having described perhaps only two species, agree mentally with Lord Stanhope, that it is all fiddle faddle; however, the other day I got a curious case of a unisexual, instead of hermaphrodite cirripede, in which the female had the common cirripedial character, and in two valves of her shell had two little pockets, in each of which she kept a little husband; I do not know of any other case where a female invariably has two husbands. I have one still odder fact, common to several species, namely, that though they are hermaphrodite, they have small additional, or as I shall call them, complemental males, one specimen itself hermaphrodite had no less than seven, of these complemental males attached to it. Truly the schemes and wonders of Nature are illimitable. But I am running on as badly about my cirripedia as about Geology; it makes me groan to think that probably I shall never again have the exquisite pleasure of making out some new district, of evolving geological light out of some troubled dark region. So I must make the best of my Cirripedia…

[The Lodge, Malvern,
March 28th, 1849.]

My dear Hooker,

Your letter of the 13th of October has remained unanswered till this day! What an ungrateful return for a letter which interested me so much, and which contained so much and curious information. But I have had a bad winter.

On the 13th of November, my poor dear father died, and no one who did not know him would believe that a man above eighty-three years old could have retained so tender and affectionate a disposition, with all his sagacity unclouded to the last. I was at the time so unwell, that I was unable to travel, which added to my misery. Indeed, all this winter I have been bad enough…and my nervous system began to be affected, so that my hands trembled, and head was often swimming. I was not able to do anything one day out of three, and was altogether too dispirited to write to you, or to do anything but what I was compelled. I thought I was rapidly going the way of all flesh. Having heard, accidentally, of two persons who had received much benefit from the water-cure, I got Dr. Gully’s book, and made further enquiries, and at last started here, with wife, children, and all our servants. We have taken a house for two months, and have been here a fortnight. I am already a little stronger…Dr. Gully feels pretty sure he can do me good, which most certainly the regular doctors could not…I feel certain that the water-cure is no quackery.

How I shall enjoy getting back to Down with renovated health, if such is to be my good fortune, and resuming the beloved Barnacles. Now I hope that you will forgive me for my negligence in not having sooner answered your letter. I was uncommonly interested by the sketch you give of your intended grand expedition, from which I suppose you will soon be returning. How earnestly I hope that it may prove in every way successful…

[When my father was at the Water-cure Establishment at Malvern he was brought into contact with clairvoyance, of which he writes in the following extract from a letter to Fox, September, 1850.

"You speak about Homoeopathy, which is a subject which makes me more wrath, even than does Clairvoyance. Clairvoyance so transcends belief, that one's ordinary faculties are put out of the question, but in homoeopathy common sense and common observation come into play, and both these must go to the dogs, if the infinitesimal doses have any effect whatever. How true is a remark I saw the other day by Quetelet, in respect to evidence of curative processes, viz., that no one knows in disease what is the simple result of nothing being done, as a standard with which to compare homoeopathy, and all other such things. It is a sad flaw, I cannot but think, in my beloved Dr. Gully, that he believes in everything. When Miss -- was very ill, he had a clairvoyant girl to report on internal changes, a mesmerist to put her to sleep--an homoeopathist, viz. Dr. --, and himself as hydropathist! and the girl recovered."

A passage out of an earlier letter to Fox (December, 1884) shows that he was equally sceptical on the subject of mesmerism: "With respect to mesmerism, the whole country resounds with wonderful facts or tales..I have just heard of a child, three or four years old (whose parents and self I well knew) mesmerised by his father, which is the first fact which has staggered me. I shall not believe fully till I see or hear from good evidence of animals (as has been stated is possible) not drugged, being put to stupor; of course the impossibility would not prove mesmerism false; but it is the only clear experimentum crucis, and I am astonished it has not been systematically tried. If mesmerism was investigated, like a science, this could not have been left till the present day to be done satisfactorily, as it has been I believe left. Keep some cats yourself, and do get some mesmeriser to attempt it. One man told me he had succeeded, but his experiments were most vague, and as was likely from a man who said cats were more easily done than other animals, because they were so electrical!"]

Charles Darwin to C. Lyell.

Down, December 4th [1849].

My dear Lyell,

This letter requires no answer, and I write from exuberance of vanity. Dana has sent me the Geology of the United States Expedition, and I have just read the Coral part. To begin with a modest speech, I am astonished at my own accuracy!! If I were to rewrite now my Coral book there is hardly a sentence I should have to alter, except that I ought to have attributed more effect to recent volcanic action in checking growth of coral. When I say all this I ought to add that the consequences of the theory on areas of subsidence are treated in a separate chapter to which I have not come, and in this, I suspect, we shall differ more. Dana talks of agreeing with my theory in most points; I can find out not one in which he differs. Considering how infinitely more he saw of Coral Reefs than I did, this is wonderfully satisfactory to me. He treats me most courteously. There now, my vanity is pretty well satisfied…