From Emma Darwin to G. H. Darwin 19 March [1886]

My dear George

I am afraid you have been rather long without a letter; but I hope mine of Sat— or Sunday last w^d have made your mind easy about me— I am going on quite well, but slowly & my appetite is quite good— Hen. came down here on Monday, but I suppose she was not fit for it as she became feverish again the next day; & tho' she is better she is still in bed— I think you are well off to be out of England this most unwholesome time, when I see the death rate has increased to such a g^t degree— I am very sorry you have lost the Galtons— I have been m. excited by the resignation of Chamberlain & Trevelyan, & I trust they will keep firm— The Spectator is my Pope now— He is very conceited, but I think entirely free from party passion. Cambridge had been mooting the point of petitioning the Queen to turn out Dilke from the Privy Council; but it is given up, I suppose because they think his guilt has not been proved— M^r Jackson has felt it all deeply, as he had a g^t regard for Dilke.

Horace is on a Committee for the preservation of the U. from fire, which gives him a good deal of work, & also he is trying for the post of Guardian   It is too much for him, but he says that the work is so different from his own work that he stands it pretty well— It gave me r. a turn your being so nearly travelling on that day—& it gave me a bigger one reading of the wreck of the Oregon, wh. Maud thought of going in— No lives being lost, & feeling confident from the beginning that they c^d be saved, took away the horror, but it w^d have been bad enough w. poor little Gwen on her mind too— I have forwarded your address to Rittler—

Yours my dear George don't be in haste to come home, tho' therm. is 50 & steady rain today—

I went down to luncheon yesterday— E. Darwin

you shall have post cards often—