From G. H. Darwin to Emma Darwin 27 February [1873]

Dear Mother

I have very little news as things keep on just the same.—

On Mond. I had a note from Lady Dunfermline asking me to go a drive in the country with her & her daughter & as it was a lovely day & I liked her very much during my call I was much disappointed at not being able to go; but I dare'nt trust myself very far from the hotel & so I had to give it up. We are reduced awfully low for Society now as M^rs. Kinloch has gone; poor woman I'm sure she's discovered she has married a fool, wh. must be a bitter pill in the honeymoon. Sir E. Strachey whom I mentioned in my letter is also migrated— to a villa near; we found him very pleasant & nice & he asked us to come & see him— which we did yesterday p.m as it was too wet to go much of a walk. I got a great butter from him—for he asked who it was that wrote that amusing article in Macmillan about dress & said that he had had the pleasure of reading it aloud in a country house when everybody had been m. int^sted in it. Flattery isn't half bad when it comes in that sort of way—because he didn't know it was me I'm sure, as he said it was by Chas. D.,—

Horace sits next to the most ghastly stupid man I ever saw & I sit next 4 elderly & v. commonplace Miss Gordons—one of 'em v. affected. A Capt Clarke is the only redeeming feature in the people now.

My French master is v. good & is a man of some education being a Latin & Greek M~ by prof. but I wish he shaved a little more & was a leetle cleaner— a man of the same sort in Engl^d. w^d. be quite neat. I write a story for him out of my head & he corrects it v. carefully & he dictates to me, I read it aloud to him & then tell in my own words what it all-about—wh. is admirable I'm sure & then we talk. I have furbished up wonderfully & find it ever so m. easier to talk than I did:— I hadn't perceived how m. I had fallen below my former Parisian standard. I'm going to tell him of the Irish bull about the nigger & the white man having his face blacked today. Horace is more persistent with his French now, but anything like the number of times he has to be corrected in the pronunciation of the same word I never saw— still he does make progress. Tell Hen. that I've paid her bill & that I knew Hudson at Camb. but he's left more than a month ago.

H. has been a good deal better for 4 or 5 days but doesn't quite so well today. As for me I've been m. the same perhaps not quite so well as before.— I got in despair about my dinner as it won't stop down & so am trying a new tack—a good luncheon & a baked apple with^t. sugar & for dinner absolutely nothing but meat & toast or biscuit. I rather doubt however whether so little vegetable will keep me in health (sic) for long—but I shall ask D^r. F. what he thinks. I've read a book he lent me about milk diet & am almost tempted to give it a try

Yours affectionately | G. H. Darwin

I received Nature this m^g & am m. obliged for it. I've got so m. to read & write now that I've plenty to do, but I wish we were up to expeditions as it is very monotonous