From H. E. Litchfield to Emma Darwin 1 December [1871]

Dear Mother

Many thanks for your opinion abt Norfolk Square—it is a g^t. help to us. I wish I wish I knew whether it would be too long a walk for R. That & aspect are the 2 great questions & the former can only be settled by experience. The drawing room is small—but of course we cant get a Palace in a good situation for £120 per ann  I think we shall be foolish if we let it slip— I've just been sifting our book & I find today there is only one house which is really at all worth going t look at—& this I feel a perfect [illeg] won't do. I am going t have a braghamQQQQ & use Rs half holiday— It seems a bright day & I feel pretty strong. I had M^rs. Vernon & M^rs. Hooker yesterday— I hear such a horrid acct of Cynthia Symonds marriage  Besides being 71 he only lost his wife after 50 years marriage in Feby & was engaged t C. in June. M^rs. Hooker says she has taken C. off her pedestal—& that M^r. & M^rs Symonds mind it so much they cant speak abt it. It would be better if he wasn't an old swell. I find I get physic at the Coop. Store from 100 to 150 per cent cheaper Isolated fact—but still interesting. R. has had a horrid bustling week there has been a grand todo at the W. M. C. about a proposed amalgamation of the WWC & WMC which is squashed for this time. R. is very much against a pure experiment being tried on this unfortunate college which does good work now of one kind—& which might do good work of another kind but it is a perfect experiment— let them start [smelting] afresh if they can but he thinks they must show better cause before they ought to be allowed t upset arrangements which do work & of which there is only one specimen. If you were t ruin Oxford Cambridge might grow & take its place—but I believe G^t. Ormond St stands alone in its attempt at getting the social life for working men our universities have for our men.

Goodbye dear M. 12 more days of goodbye— yr HEL