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

Dear George

Tuesday has come & gone & compact is broken on both sides—any rate the breach on my side shall be repaired. I went up to Uncle Rases on Monday for one night & managed to do a good deal only seeing Uncle Ras happened to be one of the things which were not included, wh. I was sorry for. I took a scurry thro' the academy  one picture was hauntingly beautiful—by Mason—the man who did Uncle Rases picture. The Leighton I saw I though rather hideous—Ariadne I mean—who is quite dead except her hand & it gives an almost ridiculous effect. Then I had two long sits with Snow who has been in great trouble—Macmillan has rejected her book & is very angry with the bargain, & the worry & vexation of this has quite upset poor Snow. I hope she will get her book published all the same—& if I was she I'd publish it myself sooner than waste all that immensity of trouble.

I think I shall ask her to let me read some of it in M.S.S. only Heavens! if I sh^dnt like it! I had a partially [galoptious] concert on Tuesday, but Frank is the boy to write to on that head— if you seen him soon, however, after the receipt of this, tell him there was one thing of Chopins in which the noise & fire & stupendousness can't possibly be expressed in bricks or any other metaphor. I think there ought to be a subscription to get cod liver for the poor piano's lungs, wh. I'm sure must have spent half a life time in that one ordeal of 10 minutes. Also tell Frank that Ella