From W. E. Darwin to Emma Darwin 7 October [1878]

My dear Mother,

I have never yet written you a decent letter, I have been too weak kneed for any exertion.

This delicious air is setting me up so I am going to try what I can do. at last my walking powers are returning and yesterday I had a delightful walk of 3 hours over the hills. I again find Stockbridge the most charming place, and still maintain that there is no place with moderate hills (rather lower that Malvern) and without lakes that is so delightful for walking. The country is now just putting in the autumn colouring and will soon be orange & scarlet in patches; each individual scarlet maple tree is wonderfully beautiful but it makes the country as whole look too gaudy.

We i.e. Sara Aunt Annie and I have been here a week and we have had a buzz of visitors—cousins and second cousin & connections & friends every day—and as it is 6 years since Sara was here she enjoys it very much. The only objection to the delights of spending the autumn here would be the amount of tea parties one would have to go through. New England and Stockbridge especially is in the 2 oclock dinner and $\frac{1}{2}$ past 6 tea state of existence, and in winter you go out to tea with your lantern like in [Cranford] I fancy.

Two nights ago we had tea at a spinster connection who is the daughter of a former clergyman here & lives alone in a charming house on the village street— "the . . . . . . It is a house overlooking a charming lake, and view was covered with a most delicate [haze] and a perfectly still day about as warm as an early September day at home

We had a very pleasant lunch, and Americans are so full of all sorts of interests their general conversation is much less insipid than in England.

M^r. & M^rs Story the sculptor was there having just arrived from Rome.

We go back to Cambridge on Tuesday, and in a few days I go up to Maine to Richard and then to Canada.

I believe we are to sail Nov 18^th as we mean to stay for Arthur's wedding on the 16^th.

We had the bride at Cambridge for a night, she is clever & bright something like what Effy was but with a fearfully harsh voice.

She luckily has a rich father who will make a good allowance.

This letter will find you just beginning your move to Cambridge I think— I wrote to Bessy saying I would take the old mare.

Sara sends her best love & is horridly ashamed of not having written— she is very well & enjoys it heartily

Goodbye Dear Mother | your affect son | W. E. D.