The Red Notebook

Emma Darwin, devoted wife and cousin of Charles, has written her first ever blog post, Emma Darwin – On the bi-centenary of the birth of her husband, Charles. She observes:

I am most comforted to learn that my husband’s legacy has helped guide the development of cures for the deadly afflictions that ultimately took the lives of our dearest Annie and Charles Jr. and so many other innocent children.

Well said, Emma. Not all evolutionary study is purely descriptive: some of it has profound, real-word applications.

Charles Darwin to his son, William, 7th July, 1859:

Mamma went up yesterday & brought down two such patterns, of the exact colour of mud, streaked with rancid oil, that we have all exclaimed against them; & I have agreed to take anything in preference & we have settled on a crimson flock-paper with golden stars, though unseen by me.—

Even the placid Darwin drew the line at streaky, brown wallpaper.

Charles Darwin never comes across as a particularly red-blooded male with regards to his appreciation of the fairer sex. True, there was the brief relationship with Fanny Owen in his pre-Beagle days—a relationship which seems never to have got much further than some slightly flirty correspondence. And I remember, when visiting Down House, reading with delight on the page that happened to be open in his Beagle diary that day, some rather yearnful comments regarding the Spanish ladies of Buenos Ayres.

But then Darwin came home and married his cousin, having decided that a wife would be better than a dog, the hopeless romantic.

And that’s about it. Charles Darwin remained a happily married man for the rest of his days, casting never so much as a glance at any woman other than his beloved Emma.

Or so I thought…

Then, I came across the following in a letter Darwin wrote to his eldest son, William, and I began to see old Charlie in a new light:

Aunt Catherine comes here for fortnight next Monday.— Mammie & Lizzie are gone to lunch today with the Normans; as we declined a dinner invite, which the beautiful Miss Norman brought us.—

Charles, you old rogue! You’re old enough to be her father! Shame on you! But seriously, though, good on you, mate! I was starting to get a bit worried about you.

An editorial footnote to the letter explains: In a letter written shortly before this one, Emma Darwin told William: ‘… Papa admires Miss N[orman]. very much, which I do not she smiles too constantly & a smile is never a sweet one that is constant’.

Sour grapes, Emma?

See also: Books – The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, volume 7: 1858–1859

On this day in 1851:

Charles Darwin to Emma Darwin, 23rd April 1851

My dear dearest Emma

I pray God Fanny’s note may have prepared you. She went to her final sleep most tranquilly, most sweetly at 12 oclock today. Our poor dear dear child has had a very short life but I trust happy, & God only knows what miseries might have been in store for her. She expired without a sigh. How desolate it makes one to think of her frank cordial manners. I am so thankful for the daguerreotype. I cannot remember ever seeing the dear child naughty. God bless her. We must be more & more to each other my dear wife— Do what you can to bear up & think how invariably kind & tender you have been to her.— I am in bed not very well with my stomach. When I shall return I cannot yet say. My own poor dear dear wife.

C. Darwin

Anne Elizabeth Darwin (Annie)
(1841–1851)

Darwin was writing from Dr James Gully’s hydropathic establishment in Great Malvern, Worcestershire, where he had taken his desperately ill daughter in the vain hope that she might make a recovery. The heavily pregnant Emma had had to remain at home.

Darwin’s references to God were surely calculated to comfort his wife: whatever vestigial religious belief he might have had at that point died with poor Annie.

Fatal attack at 12.

Emma Darwin’s diary entry, 18th[sic] April, 1882

Thus, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary of 1882 the passing of one of the greatest minds the world has ever known. From the corrections made to subsequent diary entries, it would appear that Emma missed a day somewhere, which explains why her husband Charles’s death is incorrectly recorded as falling on Tuesday 18th April, 1882, rather than on Wednesday 19th.

As of today, you can read all of Emma Darwin’s diaries on the increasingly wonderful Darwin Online website.

This is exactly the sort of thing the internet was supposed to be for. Very well done, chaps!