The General Post Office sent one penny in response to GHD’s complaint, and demanded a receipt, which CD has sent. CD will keep the penny.
Suggests that GHD employ W. M. Hacon as solicitor for selling E. A. Darwin’s house, rather than Mr Salt’s agents; he remembers that firm as full of odious people.
CD is sorry he bothered GHD about the solicitor, but he boils with indignation to this day when he remembers how rudely he was treated by Mr Salt’s firm in London [40 years earlier].
Is obliged to GHD for arranging everything.
Sorry about the proof-sheets.
Has been visiting Anthony Rich, who persists in his intention to leave his property to CD despite the large fortune left by Erasmus. It is now all the more necessary for CD to arrange his own will.
Tremendously interested by GHD’s news [about the Plumian Professorship at Cambridge]. Suggests he get William Thomson to write to the electors.
Last issue of Nature has made him "awfully proud". [See R. S. Ball, "A glimpse through the corridors of time", Nature 25 (1881): 79–82.]
Encloses a letter from a Mr Hill on some [unspecified] legal matter.
Asks GHD to send a copy of his "paper on the moon" [probably Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 171 (1880): 713–891] to V. O. Kovalevsky.
Has sent last week’s Nature wth J. S. Newberry’s paper ["Hypothetical high tides", Nature 25 (1882): 357–8]. CD thinks Newberry is right. This week’s issue has a letter against Newberry by Charles Callaway ["Letters to the editor: hypothetical high tides", Nature 25 (1882): 385].
The Archbishop of Canterbury has launched a series by scientists in the Contemporary Review on what is known and what is theoretical in science. [The series appears to have begun with an article by Robert S. Ball, "The boundaries of astronomy", 41 (1882): 923–41]. CD was asked to participate, but refused.
Writes about their new billiard table.
Enquires about the relationship of English grains to French milligrammes.
Asks GHD what the chances are against squinting and non-squinting children coming alternately in a family of ten.
CD has come to think a name better than "Pangenesis" is needed. Asks GHD to get a suggestion from a classics scholar. "Cell-genesis wd be perfect if it cd be put into Greek."
Congratulations on GHD’s brilliant tripos success.
John Lubbock regrets GHD did not take the Eton post. JL thinks scientific masters will soon occupy places as high and as profitable as classical masters.
CD relays the advice of Sir W. R. Grove on the dismal prospects of a law career.
Asks GHD to look in William Thomson’s book [W. Thomson and P. G. Tait, Treatise on natural philosophy, vol. 1 (1867)] to see how many million years ago Thomson says earth’s crust solidified. CD is troubled by "brevity of the world", because pre-Silurian creatures must have lived during endless ages "else my views wd be wrong, which is impossible – Q.E.D.".
Returns and sends comments on Clarke Hawkshaw’s essay ‘The persistence of forms of life in the depths of the sea’.
Thanks GHD for extracts, but says the subject of music is beyond him.
Suggests that GHD deliberate over one or two sentences of his paper on dress ["Developments in dress", Macmillan’s Mag. 22 (1872): 410–16].
Refers to prospective marriage of Amy [Ruck and CD’s son Francis].
