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

Dear George

Here we are. We left London at 8.15 on Friday, & owing to Papa's having done the journey up so well he was very little nervous. We had a carriage to ourselves & he really did not mind it at all. I am quite sure if he was not nervous he c^d get to the Lakes quite well, & I hope next year we shall make a longer move

He saw D^r B. Jones who said that he must take a rest much oftener than he usually did, every 3 months he said. Well, just after Yarmouth we we thought it very pretty—but afterwards as we got towards Freshw. as Anne said it got "huglier & huglier" till it reached its climax in the mean little valley with half a dozen sordid red brick houses in which we are placed. I won't seek to denige that we are low at our prospecks. There are the downs tis true & if you can walk 5 or 6 miles they may be nice—(you can walk 15 miles on'em) but two miles which seems awfully hard work to my legs doesn't seem to get you any way at all. I've been one walk on one down & I've got to go one more on the other side & then I shall sit down contentedly at the bottom till Tommy & the Pony come & choose to drag me up. There is no beach—g^t big chalk cliffs if you like'em—I don't—chalk is chalk all the world over & I feel as if I knew a deal too much about it for any romance to be left. We are $\frac{1}{4}$ mile from the sea, we do see it out of our croquet ground, & drawing room window.

The croquet ground is good, & will be a resource to Lizzie & me. The house is comfortably furnished tho' rather small. I don't thk you boys will find it quite so dull as we do cos you'll get further. We'll make a 2 day tour to Shanklin & revisit old haunts. Today has been amusing as regards people  at 10 oclk Papa Mama & I went to call on Longfellow who is here meeting Tennyson & Tom Appleton who is their Barnum as he says, was most amusing. He says he has had ""Spirits on the brain, but he has got thro' now & is waiting for something more wonderful to believe", and Oh my goodness the stories he told. He dined last night with Tennyson & then took him into a wood with a candle, & said he told him such things as he'd never heard before, wh. we c^d well believe, but it is his funny Yankee turns of expression that are so amusing. Then we had M^r Clarke, then our landlady M^rs Cameron who was quite as queer in her way as Tom Appleton. Just now she has sent in her maid with her love & she was feeling so depressed without a photograph of her son Henry, w^d we send it over. She'll do my P^a. of course.

Well Goodbye. I haven't extenuated anything to you, but we don't abuse it to William. We hope for lunch Ras.

yours H.E.D.

Papa has been v. well  This ink is too bad to live.