From Emma Darwin to Leonard Darwin 4 October 1874

My dear Lenny

An intensely rainy Sunday is a good opp. for beginning a letter, though it will not go just yet.

Horace is just returned from a delightful jaunt in Scotland with W^m. I will see if I can make him give you his own version of it, if not I will tell you the outlines.

George is come home from visiting the Cooksons at Ullswater. He is really better & has had no sickness for 3 months. He still goes on with his 3 walks, but finds it generally hopeless to enlist any companion for the early one now you are away

He is 3^lb heavier & has got into 9 stone. I quite long to go to the same Inn on Ullswater next year. The walks close round are so charming. Per contra, they are mostly very steep— He and Mrs C. are the greatest friends & dispute & argufy over everything. The little boys took vehemently to him, & he brought up my old resource of cutting out things in paper. He was more ambitious than I ever used to be & accomplished a coach & 4. They saw a great deal of the F. Harrisons who were close by, & now & then that pretty little Mrs Marshall who was at the séance— Her husband is partially insane & has been quite so both before & after his marriage, so it is a sad household. Edmund is here now. He has had an attack of the chest at Aunt Eliz. & is come here for change of air before he goes home. I think he enjoys very much being with the boys again after being confined to his room. After all male society braces up people & is more stirring than female— Uncle Charles came to look after him & wanted to take him back at once, but Ed. was quite inclined for a little visit here, & for once had his own way— Their new house at B—mouth is so large & well built & air tight that he has some hopes of remaining there for the winter. Lena's passion now is for Badminton & cricket. She belongs to a High Church Guild, & the President wrote her a remonstrance on on playing cricket, & she answered by casting in their teeth the young lady's skating club in London w. is a regular display—& wd not give in. Now the Lady Pres. of the Guild has turned Catholic so I don't know what they will do. They employ none but High Church tradesmen & I can't think how Ed. can consent to her belonging to any thing so immoral, & so bidding for hypocrisy.

The Litches come home on Tuesday. They stayed over a week at Venice, & that seems to have been the cream of their tour. They had fine evenings & lovely moonlight & loafed about every night in Gondolas. Hen. has been very little up to doing things but Venice suited her exactly as it did not require m. exertion. The girls took a giro by themselves to Lugano & Como & Milan, while the Litches went straight to Venice. The Franks think of moving in on Tuesday, & I think they will find it great fun—

Their house will be very pretty & comf. & they say they have not yet impinged on their fourth hundred—

Camilla is to be married at her old Mrs—the Malthuses in Surrey & Horace is going to give her away & is going to see whether G. or F's frock coat will do the best for him.

If Bessy is at home she will be bridesmaid.

Wednesday— Hurrah! we have got yr scrap of Aug 6 off the coast of Valparaiso. at the cost only of a 1/. So your fisherman was a man of honour. It was so pleasant seeing your handwriting unexpectedly— I read it $\frac{1}{2}$ thro' without really making out it was you— I have sent it to [Skimp], who is coming here this evg. to go to the wedding tomorrow. The Litches & Bessy arrived last night rather late as they had a detestable passage, which delayed them & they missed the up train & in the hooroosh B. was nearly left behind in the dark at Dover which wd not have been pleasant. George dined at High Elms yesterday & met Mosley & had a pleasant dinner & a good deal of talk with Mosley.

F. has got thro' all his Utricularia observations with the microscope & is pretty well— Amy & Frank move today in this horrid rain. Their dining room looks quite medieval with all its old oak, & one of their bargains is quite handsome. George is going to send you all sorts of information & his old letters of recommendation which he did not use— As his claim was being his father's son, you wd have just the same—

I shall write to the Nortons near the time when you reach Boston, as that would be a very nice finish for you.

Goodbye my dearest old man | E. Darwin