From H. E. Darwin to G. H. Darwin [1868]

Dear Geo.

I am delighted to hear you mean to keep poor W^m. company at Malvern. If you have decent weather & he is not too seedy I think you may find it v. pleasant. I am sorry it is to be only for a week. I'm sorry of course we shan't have any of you in London, but if it can't be, it can't be. You sound like a hospital nurse

I was asking Hope today how her friendship w^d. stand such a test & she frankly owned it wd succumb without a struggle. But we aint all made the same as regards such things. As yet our stay has been v. pleasant. It has been v. nice not having to scurry 9 miles an hour thro' everything but to feel there is time before us. Papa has been to the Sir J. Lubbock Huxley Hooker monthly club & had a very pleasant evening. Also yesterday to the Royal Soc half yearly party, where he seems to have had a pretty fine time, tho' the crowd was so tremendous that he c^d. not move about easily & find whom he wanted to talk to. Bowman is out of town till April which is a grief— The Rouse affair is settled & Wrigley has behaved in a very ungentlemanlike manner. Rouse wrote to him for Horace's character—(you know that Papa only agreed to keep on Horace till Easter cos no tutor was to be found at Xmas) & Wrigley wrote back a curt letter saying he had received no intimation that H. was to quit & must decline to give him any character. The natural conclusion wd be that his character was so bad that Wrigley did not like to give it without express orders, but Rouse seems to have concluded it was ill temper & says in effect he doesn't care about any character. Don't u think it v. mean of Old Wriggles? Cos where was the harm of saying, he is a good boy? We heard this morning that [Leaa] is safely over her troubles. It is a little girl & both are doing well. I am v. Glad that is safely over—Godfrey's melancholy end makes one feel nervous.

We have got gaunt Lucy up for a couple of concerts & today Amy Crofton dines w. us & I take'em to the Mon. Pop. Yesterday we had two Jollets & Hope to dinner, & Lucy made exactly one remark the whole dinner & evening. If I was her Ma I wd just tell her people in company are expected not to be statues. Tell Bunker Hope & I have been reading Sundew & that it is going into both our Potted books cos we thk it v. pretty & beautifully devoid of any sense wh. is what we like. We like to have specimens of all poets and Swinburne was very unfairly represented before. I had two poems & Hope ditto & now 4 a piece will make a v. good division. I shall have Felise & she shall have Pors:

By the bye what are your avimiles that you've been reading?

Let us kno Malvern address to know how you fare.

I have been seeing pictures & am rather torpid so no more today from your affec | H.E.D.

I am rather better tho' not v. well yet—

Wallace has written a quire upon sterility with a new element introduced. wh. adds to the complexity 10 fold.