From H. E. Darwin to Emma Darwin 14 and 15 March [1870]

Dearest Mother,

Many thanks for your letter & copying & for Bessy's—between you & Hope we have seen a great many letters. What feeling & natural letters Aunt Jessie's are. Her real feeling only is shown & all the propriety is gone. Do you thk it really may make her & the girls behave better to Uncle Harry. I don't wonder you have not felt inclined to write much. What an extraordinary want of feeling it was in that man who went to the funeral to talk about the City of Boston the night he got there. I am afraid there is no hope now of its being not being shipwrecked by what they say in the papers. A^t. Eliz must have been a g^t. comfort to At F.A. & I suppose will be as m. of a comfort to the Harries as anybody in the world, tho' that is not saying much. The pain can only ache itself dead, & that will probably never be in Uncle Harry's life. I want to hear how London has answered to Father, whether he has enjoyed it & whether he has gone back rested. Uncle Rases £10 will come in very apropos, tho' I have not got anything especial in my minds eye that I want this moment. I expect I shall find when I get home, however that some of it will have to go in paying for all the 101 little odds & ends I have bought. I must get Marie a present when I go & I can't thk what it shall be. On yes I can, collars & cuffs that is alw. useful & I don't thk I need go in for a v. expensive affair About the post. I have had no answer from Paris, so I suppose M.S.S can't be sent by post, incredible tho' it may seem. I must go to bed directly as I was very late last night & must be v. early tomorrow for my french lesson. Tuesday. 11 o'clk. As u say I may be more lavish in small expenses, I have gone in for $\frac{1}{2}$ another lesson a week. I do feel now, that I see a height above me where I can rest tolerably satisfied. That is today to be able to hold a simple conversation without over much stumbling & in not too awful an accent, & to write simple notes correctly—that is my aim & if I work hard till I go I don't see why I shdn't compass it. I wrote a couple of notes for the Langtons & Ed. got complimented upon his french, which they said was like a native whereupon he confessed he hadn't written it himself, & I find with a little m. trouble & thought I can translate from an English book into french without a dictionary & keep the exact sense. I sit & read aloud Dumas to myself to practise my pronunciation. I am going again to lunch at the Stricklands. I am going to try & organise an expedition with Miss Nevile, who is staying there, & this afternoon there is a matinee musical at M^rs Matheson's to wh. I am going & where I shall join in the chorus along of Ed & Lena. I can't remember whether I have written since the 2nd lunch at the Bathursts—not that there is anything to Chronicle—only a marvellously good lunch, wh. we appreciate after the horseflesh we eat here. We have now ousted the old chef, & have nothing to complain of. Wh is a comfort for I really felt never the least sure what we were eating the meat was so extraordinary & I quite expected he poisoned with it some night. we are all perfectly certain a tongue we had was not the tongue of an ox whatever it was. Our weather is perfectly delicious now & I feel it a waste to be in, but I must rest my limbs today. My knee has got slightly bad & my instep is very bad, wherever I put pads on my foot, I relieve one part at the expense of another. I hope I shan't ever come to irons, but I am afraid my right foot drops over m. & m. I took a solitary walk yesterday & enjoyed myself hugely, being able to stay out quite late as Ed. was not with me. I got up the ridge behind our house to see the beloved snowy mountains, & for the first time saw the view really beautifully lighted, with great blue shadows, & dear beloved peaks in pure white. They have alw. looked smoky before. I sat on a stone & turned my head tipsy turvy till I hardly knew wh. was my right way up. It is marvellous the differnece it makes in colouring & in stereoscopicness, & then I got up to the highest peak where I could see all round. Estrelles the islands, Antibes, Nice & the Snowy mountains—Corsica was not visible, tho' it looked so clear—& then I loitered home just in time for 6.30 dinner with a lovely amber glow over the mountains for sunset, there being not a cloud in the heavens. Oh please the pokers this weather goes on. Uncle Charles cant shake off his cold, which is most provoking & not his fault this time, for he is very careful. Lena quite well. I am glad you saw Godfrey. I've had such a nice & characteristic letter from Amy, telling me every mouthful they eat on this journey. I am so vexed Snow has been doing such an illjudged tactless thing. She is so unrestrained & unrestrainable. Hope has not said anything abt it one way or the other. It is such a pity a few grains of common sense & tact weren't mixed up with her when she was made. She is such a fine & such an unpleasantly faulty charcter, cos her fault of want of consideration & delicacy of feeling is so disagreeable one often feels a revulsion

Private

It is an insuperable bar between Sno & Hope, & it is such a pity Snow won't recognise it without attempted intimacy they might be friendly. It is absolutely opposed to Hope's ideas, Sno's behaviour to her friends & poor Hope cannot resign herself to it— it also gives her a fresh turn each time  It also freezes Hope to have anybody clamour for affection & that is what Sno does  Hope feels you sh^d earn it & not clamour for it & above all not take liberties with it. Hope is sadly too much the other way & I thk it is partly reaction agst Sno's habit of burdening her friends that makes Hope hold back. I wonder if ur speech will do anything abt Jossi & Uncle Ras—make Bessy write & tell me all abt London, play & all. For Lena especially—Lena thought Hope's bare mention of the fact very unfeeling conduct. Lena is such a funny woman. To the dpths of her funnyness there is no bottom, at least I haven't found. She is v. acture in seeing