Believe me, yours affectionately,
C. D. to J. S. Henslow. Devonport [December 3, 1831].
My dear Henslow—It is now late in the evening, and to-night I am going to sleep on board. On Monday we most certainly sail, so you may guess in what a desperate state of confusion we are all in. If you were to hear the various exclamations of the officers, you would suppose we had scarcely had a week's notice. I am just in the same way taken all aback, and in such a bustle I hardly know what to do. The number of things to be done is infinite. I look forward even to sea-sickness with something like satisfaction, anything must be better than this state of anxiety. I am very much obliged for your last kind and affectionate letter. I always like advice from you, and no one whom I have the luck to know is more capable of giving it than yourself. Recollect, when you write, that I am a sort of protégé of yours, and that it is your bounden duty to lecture me.
I will now give you my direction: it is at first, Rio; but if you will send me a letter on the first Tuesday (when the packet sails) in February, directed to Monte Video, it will give me very great pleasure: I shall so much enjoy hearing a little Cambridge news. Poor dear old Alma Mater! I am a very worthy son in as far as affection goes. I have little more to write about.... I cannot end this without telling you how cordially I feel grateful for the kindness you have shown me during my Cambridge life. Much of the pleasure and utility which I may have derived from it is owing to you. I long for the time when we shall again meet, and till then believe me, my dear Henslow,
Your affectionate and obliged friend,
Ch. Darwin.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] "On Tuesday last Charles Darwin, of Christ's College, was admitted B.A."—Cambridge Chronicle, Friday, April 29th, 1831.
[66] Readers of Calverley (another Christ's man) will remember his tobacco poem ending "Hero's to thee, Bacon."
[67] The rooms are on the first floor, on the west side of the middle staircase. A medallion (given by my brother) has recently been let into the wall of the sitting-room.