TSAWTB Section 6 - Interlude - A Miscellany of Items

272 Section 6 - Interlude
His replied that he was very busy and that “numerous leads remain to be
followed up” and, somewhat surprisingly, that “vindicating Lady Hope’s
story” was for him a “chimerical task”!
Moore spent 20 years collecting his information, travelling to several
continents, and was funded by the Open University. Would that Christian
researchers could call upon such financial resources to support their
investigations.
THE EVIDENCE AGAINST
In all my reading of Darwin’s last days, it must be admitted that I found
nothing whatsoever that gave any support to Lady Hope’s record of her
visit. There is not a single reference to it by Darwin or any member of the
family. One might have expected just one passing mention in a letter letting
slip that Darwin was reading the Bible or some note of a visit by a Christian
lady etc. We will therefore examine this aspect with relevant comments.
The two accounts
There is one important point that appears to have escaped all who have
followed Moore in criticising Lady Hope’s character. Moore is clearly critical
of Lady Hope, yet he admits that Lady Hope probably did visit Darwin, for
she gives an accurate description of his clothes, facial expressions, the room,
etc. Yet he also quotes the Darwin family’s total denial that she ever entered
Darwin’s house.
Now Moore, and all who have adopted his conclusions, cannot have it both
ways. Either Lady Hope did go to Darwin’s House or she did not. As Moore
admits that she did, then the total denial of the Darwin family of any
knowledge of her visit(s) or even of any knowledge of her existence, is a
falsehood. Emma at least, must have known of them, and if she visited
Darwin several times, it is unlikely that no other member of the family ever
got to hear of her visits. If Henrietta and others did not know of her visits as
they were absent at that time, then they should not have denied it so
vigorously. It is my conviction that several members of the family may have
known of the visits but the implications were too traumatic for them to
accept. It is this that seems to be the most likely cause of them maintaining
their denial. We would therefore contend that if Moore is right in saying she
did visit Darwin, all the family’s vehement denials of her visit(s) were false,
whether wittingly or unwittingly. It raises, once again, their integrity.
The “death-bed” conversion.
His daughter Henrietta wrote “I was present at his deathbed. Lady Hope was
not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw
her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of
thought or belief.... The whole story has no foundation whatever.”
Now Lady Hope never claimed that she was “at his deathbed”, and those
who quote this are describing a fabricated scene in order to discredit her.
Darwin’s agnosticism
Most of Darwin’s letters and writings, far from indicating a return to
Christianity, show that, even at a late stage of his life, he remained an
agnostic. This greatly troubled his wife Emma and his daughter Henrietta.
They insisted, against fierce opposition from the brothers, principally Francis,
who were Rationalists and Freethinkers, that any anti-religious passages