To Ernst Dieffenbach [before 9 July 1845]
[Down]
‘… It is evident that you have not time now to pay me a visit, & indeed as Mrs. Darwin is in daily expectation of her confinement1 I could hardly have asked you …
When I saw your name & that of so many other naturalists at Cambridge,2 I wished much to have been there; but my strength so often fails me, that I expected more mortification than pleasure …
I should have liked to have heard the Crater-of-Elevation discussion; after having read both sides, I cannot subscribe to that view; but I think there remains something unexplained about those many vast circular volcanic ruins …3
I presume it is very unprobable that there will ever be a second German Edition of my Journal4 … I have largely condensed, corrected & added to the Second English Edition, & I am sure have considerably improved & popularised it …’
Footnotes
Bibliography
Freeman, Richard Broke. 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. 2d edition. Folkestone, Kent: William Dawson & Sons. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press.
Summary
"It is evident that you have not time now to pay me a visit, & indeed as Mrs Darwin is in daily expectation of her confinement I could hardly have asked you … When I saw your name & that of many other naturalists at Cambridge, I wished much to have been there; but my strength so often fails me, that I expected more mortification than pleasure …
I should have liked to have heard the Crater-of-Elevation discussion; after having read both sides, I cannot subscribe to that view; but I think there remains something unexplained about those many vast circular volcanic ruins …
I presume it is very unprobable [sic] that there will ever be a second German Edition of my Journal … I have largely condensed, corrected & added to the Second English Edition, & I am sure have considerably improved & popularised it".
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-888
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Ernst Dieffenbach
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- J. A. Stargardt (dealers) (Catalogue 574 11–13 November 1965)
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 888,” accessed on 1 June 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-888.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 3