From Emma Darwin to W. E. Darwin [September 1860?]

My dear William

Thank you for your pleasant account of all your gaieties. There are none of them that w^d have quite suited me, more especially the necessity of being so swell.

It is very disheartening but I don't think poor Etty makes a bit of progress. She had a very bad day on Monday & that has pulled her back & she is only now up to her usual mark. M^r Williams says we cannot give her too much wine & brandy & all the food we can get her to take  Hex has always said that it would be most lingering & that the only thing was to keep up her strength. He thinks her going on quite favourably & that we must have patience. Poor soul she has a great deal of patience I think & is got in a manner used to it. She is as thin as possible.

Aunt Eliz. is come to stay with us & help us & she will cheer us up. She brought such a pleasant letter from Amy giving an account of their voyage, when near Gronstadt a flock of little birds flew on deck, one of them a butcher bird which made the sailors very indignant by striking several of the others & killing them. They tried in vain to kill it

George came on Monday but had a dull visit with y^r father & I so much up with Etty. He consoled himself tolerably with Parslow at billiards & the boys went several times with him to the big woods where he got a clear wing &c

I think you had much better write to H.H. I was thinking of sending the book by Smiles "Self Help" because I am sure it w^d interest him, but he w^d be much more pleased at your sending it him. If you do you might tell a Camb. bookseller to send it to him by post. It costs 6/. It is a short account of almost all the great men who have raised themselves. We shall be very glad to see you on the 14 or 15  I am sorry to think we are sure to be here still. Hope says No. 17 is sold to a Turk or other Heathen from Bombay & they have to move out on the 21^st or so & they can't get in to the other till Mich. So they are on the wide world. The Turk jumped at Uncle Hensleighs offer so he was very sorry he did not ask more.