Document information

Physical location:

Box 246/2, Shillinglaw papers, La Trobe Australian manuscripts collection, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne. 94.07.30

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to John Shillinglaw, 1894-07-30. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id//letters/1890-6/1894/94-07-30-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026

30/7/94
Near Midnight
Was sorry to miss your visit, dear Mr Shillinglaw, which would have been a spright one! That a man of genius should carry for some miles an umbrella back I regard almost an unheard of affair. I was out on a double errand of charity even on the evening of the mail for the whole eastern hemisphere!
But to return to the umbrella! As I am often lost in thought, I am apt to leave such trivialities of the outer world behind; but the "moral" has been for years to me thus far to purchase the cheapest umbrella in the market only, as when one has gone astray, not all are so attentive as you.
Salve!
Ferd. von Mueller.
Among my posthumous memoires this may serve as a treatise on umbrellas.