From Leonard Darwin to Horace Darwin 21 April 1875

Dear Jim

Just got a long letter from you before leaving San Francisco in which you cuss and swear at me for not saying when I am coming home. Well I think I can afford 2 months for America and still have a little time left. We are supposed to go back by long sea and that would take 90 to 100 days and as this only take 45 I have 45 left exclusive of leave, and then I can take 60 days leave, so there is plenty of time. Well I arrived in America on April 11^th. and if I leave this land on June 11^th. I shall be at home June 21^st. There for send to meet the 4-12 train on the 22^nd.. This is supposing I find this country extra nice, but I am beginning to have had enough of gadding about. Frank cusses at me for not dilating on my personal appearance. I am fatter and balder than ever and I have a scrubby brown beard 3.1415962 inches long or thereabouts. Old William S. told a whapper when he said that a rose by another name would smell as sweet. This one would not if his name was not Darwin. I have been given lots of cards and letters of introduction in San Francisco  I went and spent one night with one of the richest bankers in San Francisco. He leads a sort of life that would drive me into a lunatic assylum in a week  We had a quiet party of 50 sleeping in the house, and had about a dozen more to lunch next day; his house is most magnificently fitted up, but every now and then something in it shewed very bad taste; every one talked about how many dollars everything cost, in fact we all fell down on our knees and worshipped the almighty dollar. I said to one man ""I suppose this house is quite new"" on which he replied that he guessed not, and that it had been built quite two years. In the morning we went a drive for some hours through park like scenery which even the most stupid of the party acknowledged was ""entirely elegant"" It is rather an advantage In some ways travelling alone, it is much easier to talk with the natives and get to know them, but it is rather dull in a place like this. The picture outside must satisfy you about the Yosemite for the present I am getting much too near home to ""write freely"" on any subject, particularly as Frank and George have been here. Yours about to a ride up the hills

L Darwin