From H. E. Darwin to G. H. Darwin 18 March [1868]

Dear G.

You are a good boy to have written us another nice letter. things seem very prosperous with you—m. so I'm afraid than they are with poor Bessy who finds the irish boy a large thorn in her side, & is rather troubled by a sense of flatness. But that will be her fate wherever she goes—great powers of wishing & small powers of enjoying— i do expect that the next letter will be less dismal. Here comes a string of messages from Father. The letter to Quatrefages if of no consequence. Can you buy & send over for him the numbers of the Revue des deux Mondes for the 1^st. of Jan & for the 1^st. of March. What is Milnes Edwardes like? Lastly a circular came to you about Frank's election to N. U. Club which we sent on to Frank as theonly course we c^d. think of. enclosed circular I herewith forward. I see Cambridge has just opened its degree to non resident students à la Oxford. I'm reading a book by Marsh Pattison on University reform which interests me. There seems to be a general feeling that endowments have been suffered to cumber the earth long eno' & I expect W. E. Forster's bill is only a 1^st stop in a new road. Oh! if I shd live to see education compulsory, & I begin to thk I may.

So poor wretched Cambridge has been beaten again. I wonder how long this will go on, & when she will give up the ghost altogether. M^r. Innes was hoping she'd win & when us enemies hope for us u must be indeed sunk to a lowly state. Frank says he has had the examination fever very bad, "& was actuated by a horrible desire to cram all human knowledge in a fortnight" but he's better now. He is going to Southwold after it is all over & says he thinks it will be jolly "to let the cool sea breeze blow on his fevered brow soothed by the company of molluscs & cuttlefish". I am rereading Lamb's letters & I do thk Frank is like a sucking Lamb—tho' I shdn't dare to say anything so awfully presumptious out of the family. There is a sort of utter abandonment in both to wherever their pen may choose to lead them. Oh dear how I hope Frank will get it.

I am still but a feeble folk. I cannot get my digestion into working order, & a feelingof despair comes over me at every meal. I wish I cld be like Tom Nobody in that antical picture book—all head & legs & arms.

I don't kno that I've anything else to say.

your affec H.E.D.