22O A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xv 



ologists if such laws are passed, the result will assuredly 

 be that physiology, which has been until within the last few 

 years at a standstill in England, will languish or quite cease. 

 It will then be carried on solely on the continent ; and there 

 will be so many fewer workers on this grand subject, and 

 this I should greatly regret. By the way F. Balfour, who 

 has worked for two or three years in the laboratory at Cam- 

 bridge, declares to George that he has never seen an experi- 

 ment, except with animals rendered insensible. No doubt 

 the names of doctors will have great weight with the House 

 of Commons ; but very many practitioners neither know nor 

 care anything about the progress of knowledge. I cannot 

 at present see my way to sign any petition, without hearing 

 what physiologists thought would be its effect, and then 

 judging for myself. I certainly could not sign the paper 

 sent me by Miss Cobbe, with its monstrous (as it seems to 

 me) attack on Virchow for experimenting on the Trichinae. 



I am tired and so no more. 



Yours affectionately, 



CHARLES DARWIN. 



Fanny Allen to her niece Emma Darwin. 



MY DEAR EMMA, A P ril t 1875 ]- 



I have been thinking of trying my hand in writing 

 with a lithographic pencil, but I have not patience to wait, 

 as your pretious letter with its grateful remembrance of the 

 sad April days of 5I 1 makes my heart beat with gratitude 

 to you for its recollection coupled as it was by the memory 

 of your grief for your darling. It is true gaps can never be 

 filled up, and I do not think we should wish them to be 

 filled other ways than as our memory fills them. . . . 



Fanny Allen, the last survivor of her generation, died on 

 May 6th, 1875, at the age of 94. She left the following 

 message : ' ' My love to all who love me, and I beg them not 

 to be sorry for me. There is nothing in my death that 



1 Fanny Allen was at Down in April, 1851, when my mother was 

 unable to go to her dying child at Malvern. 



