From H. E. Litchfield to Emma Darwin [1871–2]

Dear Mother

Many thanks for your two letters  I am so very very glad to hear so good an acct of Father. It wd have amused me to telegraph to L.H.P. Don't burn my acct of the W M C in a hurry cos if anybody wants to hear abt it I must send it them as I c^dn't rewrite it.

I went down to lunch yesterday & Uncle Ras seemed v. brisk & we had a nice steady going little talk. I don't [kno] anybody like Uncle Ras for making any little stoopid subjects have a certain flavour. R. divides the world into steady going & not steady going—& Uncle Ras & Frank have got that touch which takes 'em out of the great mass of steady goers amongst which the rest of us march. Uncle Ras had only had one [tele] [alete] dinner with R—on Sunday I was [buffu]  I don't know whether they want buffing but they are two men who live in such difft places of thought. It made me larf at [dinner]  Uncle Ras happened [to] [say] [illeg] [illeg] saw a real live man who held advanced some social opinion till the other day when he was shown a little fat man as actually holding it—& R & I [grow] at each other & I told him I thght he had seen another.

Circe came & saw me yesterday & rivetted her chairs even more firmly round me by her intense delight in R.s ovation. She said that she & Desmon both misbehaved—& that twas a great mercy V. hadn't to speak for he cdn't have done it—& she also said R.'s speech was perfection & his voice sounded so well & the tone of his speech was so calm & simple & unfull of all the things thy had been saying of him  I don't mean to say he didn't thank them as much as words would thank. She said the Beatrices were awfully sorry they cd n't be there & she seemed rather surprised Frank wasn't there—for as she said twasn't an affair we'd be likely any of us ever to see you again  I [hadn't] say it was a unique celebration in the W.M.C.

The decorations were done by a man who is a decorator & has two holidays a year—these fell last week & they were both consecrated to working like a slave up to 5 olk in the morning at all the pretty wreaths we saw. R. said when he came home—yes, there are $\frac{1}{2}$ doz men there who would die for me that w^dn't mean much from some people but it means a good deal from him—praps it is a shame to repeat what he says to me— I never know what the morals of repeating are [but] in Welbeck St. Isn't that a go—hit tis too good luck to thk a [houne] will fall straight into our mouths. Apropos of nothing it does amuse me so to have Jane mimicking Richard. It is to me so irresistably comic to have her stroking her beard & cocking her chin up into the air & shutting her eyes. She describes how he rushes into New St—not that he has anything to say or time to stop but for the pleasure of mentioning my name & seeing our Old haunts, where we had such v. nice love making. I am up & [tubbed] & going down to the d. room.

P.S. It is so satisfactory Father showing [his] old spring in recovery— Uncle Ras says you'd much better come here very soon & I thk so too— I'm sure we don't tire him— R. never sees him till dinner & I only at lunch.

Am going to see [Bency] today— R. is going to ask about a house today!!!

Conversation w^d[illeg] be very barren without any [borrowd] lights 

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