From W. E. Darwin to Emma Darwin [May 1869?]

My Dear Mama

Thank you for your letter, I have owed one for a long time; but I was in such a state of topsy turvy, & rushing up & down stairs during the week, that I could not settle down to anything in the shape of reading & writing; first there is the muddle of doing the banking in the small room; and then only having one room, I feel rather as if I was stowed away like my furniture, & then I am being continuously called off to look at something about the building; so that I shall be relieved when it is over, I am no longer in a state of fizz. I should like to have rushed home for a cherry, but it will not do just now; & I shall keep my time till the boys come home. I am glad Horace is leaving, only it is so impossible to tell whether you get a good tutor, if a parson, I should insist on some one under 40, & who had not turned into a vegetable marrow, & enjoyed eating lumps of butter with his knife like Wilson.

I am sorry the new parson is a snob, & I am afraid your snubbing powers are not what they should be, it certainly will be necessary to prevent the monster from dropping into croquet; could not you ask him when Hope was there, & get her to chill him;

I was very little surprized at prof. Beasley's sickening stuff, as I knew him to be carried away as to union, & of Course as an intense radical you could not expect him to see more than one side of a question; but I fear H^a. as a Beasleyite must have had her feelings a little scarified.

I enjoyed my Rubenstein very much indeed, & would give anything to hear him again, but suppose I shall not, is it because they are too difficult that neither you nor nobody else don't play none of his things?; the way he played the schumann was, —please ask H^a. for the right adjective, as she is good at strong language; unapproachable, is my humble attempt.

I was disappointed in the Barber, & do not think I shall care to see it again

I am very sorry poor George has been bad it must have spoilt his Paris fun; you do not say whether he thought it worth while; I am just now taking the shine out of a new horse, & skillfully looking at myself in the shop windows. Unfortunately the roads are so hard that I have to go gingerly, or worry about his feet. I hope the Woodfield one turns out well.

Southampton has been very sober lately, except a crocquet party at M^rs. Trevelyan's. I have been no where but to dinner twice at George Yonge to meet his two sisters in-law, who are half Irish & prettyish, & consequently pleasant; one is the widow of his brother.

I hear the Hensleighs are coming to you, I should like to come & meet them.

your affect son | W E Darwin