Down, Beckenham, Kent, April 23, 1873.

My dear Huxley,

I have been asked by some of your friends (eighteen in number) to inform you that they have placed through Robarts, Lubbock & Company, the sum of 2100 pounds sterling to your account at your bankers.  We have done this to enable you to get such complete rest as you may require for the re-establishment of your health; and in doing this we are convinced that we act for the public interest, as well as in accordance with our most earnest desires.  Let me assure you that we are all your warm personal friends, and that there is not a stranger or mere acquaintance amongst us.  If you could have heard what was said, or could have read what was, as I believe, our inmost thoughts, you would know that we all feel towards you, as we should to an honoured and much loved brother.  I am sure that you will return this feeling, and will therefore be glad to give us the opportunity of aiding you in some degree, as this will be a happiness to us to the last day of our lives.  Let me add that our plan occurred to several of your friends at nearly the same time and quite independently of one another.

My dear Huxley, your affectionate friend,

Charles Darwin.

It was a poignant moment.] “What have I done to deserve this?” [he exclaimed.  The relief from anxiety, so generously proffered, entirely overcame him; and for the first time, he allowed himself to confess that in the long struggle against ill-health, he had been beaten; but, as he said, only enough to teach him humility.

His first trip in search of health was in 1872, when he obtained two months’ leave of absence, and prepared to go to the Mediterranean.  His lectures to women on Physiology at South Kensington were taken over by Dr. Michael Foster, who had already acted as his substitute in the Fullerian course of 1868.  But even on this cruise after health he was not altogether free from business.  The stores of biscuit at Gibraltar and Malta were infested with a small grub and its cocoons.  Complaints to the home authorities were met by the answer that the stores were prepared from the purest materials and sent out perfectly free from the pest.  Discontent among the men was growing serious, when he was requested by the Admiralty to investigate the nature of the grub and the best means of preventing its ravages.  In the end he found that the biscuits were packed within range of stocks of newly arrived, unpurified cocoa, from which the eggs were blown into the stores while being packed, and there hatched out.  Thereafter the packing was done in another place and the complaints ceased.]

January 3, 1872.

My dear Dohrn,

It is true enough that I am somewhat “erkrankt,” though beyond general weariness, incapacity and disgust with things in general, I do not precisely know what is the matter with me.

Unwillingly, I begin to suspect that I overworked myself last year.  Doctors talk seriously to me, and declare that all sorts of wonderful things will happen if I do not take some more efficient rest than I have had for a long time.  My wife adds her quota of persuasion and admonition, until I really begin to think I must do something, if only to have peace.